skeeve
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Back-formation from skeevy, from Italian.
Pronunciation
[edit]- Rhymes: -iːv
Audio (General Australian): (file) Audio (Southern England): (file)
Verb
[edit]skeeve (third-person singular simple present skeeves, present participle skeeving, simple past and past participle skeeved)
- (slang, transitive, often with out) To disgust or disturb.
- 2007, Alexander Theroux, Laura Warholic, Or, The Sexual Intellectual[2], page 215:
- "Those are not me — preppy jackets skeeve me! I hate those shoes."
- 2013, Alyssa Rose Ivy, Soar (The Empire Chronicles #1)[3]:
- At twenty-three, Eric wasn't that much older than my nineteen, but that didn't mean his pseudo-comeons didn't skeeve me out. There was something almost menacing about him.
- (slang, transitive) To be disgusted or disturbed by.
- 1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld, Scribner, page 727:
- You could put that needle in your arm? Man, I skeeve that like death.
- 2007, George De Stefano, An Offer We Can't Refuse: The Mafia in the Mind of America[5], page 173:
- Tony's reply: "How can I skeeve you, you're the mother of my children!" Non- Italians can easily figure out that Carmela is hurt because she thinks Tony finds her physically unappealing.
- 2009 May 28, Penelope Green, “Jersey Girls, Nesting”, in New York Times[6]:
- Indeed, when baby-voiced Teresa describes the bone-crunching finishes in her new home, a 12,000-square-foot French chateau simulacrum that’s “all granite, marble and onyx,” and avers her commitment to the brand-spanking new (“I just skeeve looking at other people’s houses,” she says.
- (slang, intransitive) To be or become disgusted.
- 1993, James McCourt, Time Remaining, →ISBN, page 67:
- I remember Phil telling O'Maurigan after the Schuyler reading he's afraid I won't ever write a book— not because I'm lazy, or don't have the self-esteem, but because I skeeve on stealing.
Derived terms
[edit]Noun
[edit]skeeve (plural skeeves)
- (slang) A disgusting or loathed person.
- 1996, Robert DiChiara, Alibis, page 319:
- He looked so fucking competent, for a skeeve with greasy blond hair pulled into a ponytail, a beaded headband, and callused bare feet.
Related terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- “skeeve n.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present