spiv.
A smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
Meaning & usage
A smartly dressed person who trades in illicit, black-market or stolen goods, especially during World War II.
A flashy con artist, often homeless, who lives by his wits.
A low and common thief.
A slacker; one who shirks responsibility.
Where this word comes from
Unknown. Perhaps from spiff, spiffy. Spiv was the nickname of Henry Bagster, a Londoner arrested a number of times in 1904-6 for activities as described below, and may have been the archetype. Also possibly from Romani spiv (“sparrow”), as active and opportunistic.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.