Talk:shiver
Etymology as given by Chambers 1908[edit]
"[M. E. chiveren, a softened form of kiveren, supposed by Skeat to be a Scand. form of quiver, and a freq. of Ice. kippa, to pull, the spelling with sh being due to confusion with shiver (n.).]" Equinox ◑ 00:54, 29 September 2018 (UTC)
To shiver (verb), of unknown etymology?[edit]
The german Wikipedia says about the letter V: “the V shares a big part of its history with the U and the W, also related are Y and F”, they forgot the B.
Replacing the V with U, “shiuer” leads to an imaginary lower German verb “schiuern” (south Eastphalian dialect – south of Hanover). The direct translation to standard German is “schauern” (to shiver) or alternative “schaudern” (to shudder), of course, it is related to “to shower” and the substantive “shower”.
Old English “scūr, scéor, scȳr”: shower, rainshower, storm, restlessness, movement.
It is my adventurous theory to assert that it is related to Latin “sēcūrus” in the meaning to protect and defend oneself or something. This leads to many other variants in different languages.
By the way (related to upper comment): the modern version of "kiveren" is "to cover", the Eastphalian word is "kiurn", standard German "kauern" - "to cower" and (!!!) "to cover". --Hebels (talk) 08:23, 14 July 2022 (UTC)