What is "chiv"

Usage examples of "chiv".

Only their claws and thick chiv enabled them to hold their footing on the icy spars above.

While their sharp chiv would give good purchase on the wooden spars and masts of a ship, they would only slide on smooth rock.

Hunnar's right dan, a tough membrane extending from wrist to hip, was partly open, bulging with the force of the wind, but he balanced easily on his chiv, the elongated claws which enabled any Tran to glide across ice more gracefully than the most talented hu­man skater.

Digging his chiv sideways into the ice and using the stubby braking claw in his heel, he started to move slowly backward.

Sailors settled themselves for fast sleep in awkward positions, while others worked overlong on cleaning claws and chiv, the only weapons they had.

Hunnar asked, his chiv dig­ging deeply into the ice, holding him steady against the wind.

One foot descended, three chiv sectioned a fragment of wood the scout had recovered and marked the ice beneath.

Clasping the ladder cables in both hands, the Tran in the bow climbed toward them, moving smoothly for a biped balancing awkwardly on three sharp chiv instead of a flat foot.

Her chiv clacked on the wooden floor, making her sound like a nervous tapdancer.

Ethan studied the inlaid wood, wondering if the chiv marks were polished out after each audience or if the chamber was simply little-used.

Their sharp, long chiv were magnificently adapted for chivaning, or skating, across the ice.

But the absence of chiv and dan coupled with the short, light-colored fur seemed to suggest a variety of Tran as different from the average as a Neanderthal from Cro-Magnon man.

It smashed and ran beneath his sharp chiv, staining them with green juice and giving him a crawly feeling he was hard pressed not to show.

Lacking dan and chiv, and with a coloring closer to gold than gray, he and September did look much like the Saia.

Hunnar and his com­panions probably regarded the absence of long fur, dan and chiv as deformities, not as evidence of ad­vanced evolution.