skeeve

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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Back-formation from skeevy, from Italian.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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skeeve (third-person singular simple present skeeves, present participle skeeving, simple past and past participle skeeved)

  1. (slang, transitive, often with out) To disgust or disturb.
    • 1964, Lou Cameron, The Block Busters[1], page 186:
      I asked her, one time, if it didn't maybe skeeve her to work for a crud like Duke.
    • 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.
  2. (slang, transitive) To be disgusted or disturbed by.
    • 1993, Pete Dexter, Brotherly Love[4], page 16:
      His mother is repulsed by his uncle; he has heard her whisper it in the kitchen, "I skeeves him, Charley." She is Italian.
    • 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.
  3. (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.
    • 2011, Brad Meltzer, The Inner Circle, chapter 3:
      “Beecher,” Clementine whispers, “if this is skeeving you out, let's just skip the room and—” ¶ “I'm fine. No skeeving at all,” I tell her, knowing full well that Iris would've had me leave ten minutes ago.

Derived terms

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Noun

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skeeve (plural skeeves)

  1. (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.
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Further reading

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Anagrams

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