goniva, noun

Forms:
Also gonivah.
Origin:
Yiddish, HebrewShow more Adaptation of Yiddish geneyve, gneyve, from Hebrew geneva, from ganav steal.
obs.
A stolen diamond. Also attributive.
1887 J.W. Matthews Incwadi Yami 189He had caught and thrashed a nigger who had had, as he said, ‘the imperence [sic] to fancy that a respectable man like him would buy a “goniva”.’
1887 ‘W.T.E.’ I.D.B. 234Say, stranger, have you struck the original I.D.B. cemetery; or how is it that you find such a thunderin’ heap of gonivas [printed gouivas] in your ground?
1899 G.C. Griffith Knaves of Diamonds 65If you’ve got the gonivahs, why don’t you plant ’em somewhere safe and run ’em down when you get a chance like the others do?
1911 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Kimberley 154It was the habit of ‘the boys’ to lay in wait for him and relieve him of the superfluous cash, for this prime ‘goniva’ buyer (Anglicé –I.D.B.) was a great gambler.
1911 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Kimberley 216These wholesale robberies..formed one of the principal foundations of the immense fortune these men acquired. It was..a rapid method of getting rich — to buy gonivas and sell them thus.
1924 L. Cohen Reminisc. of Jhb. 248Goniva, my poor innocents, is the polite term used amongst the learned professors of the game to denote a stolen diamond.
1950 E. Partridge Dict. of Underworld 298Goniva, A stolen diamond: South African (and illicit diamond men’s)..ex South African s[lang] goniv, ‘an illicit diamond-buyer’.
A stolen diamond. Also attributive.
Entry Navigation

Visualise Quotations

Quotation summary

Senses

18871950

Browse Related Words

By Category

Crime and Gangs
Mining

By Origin

Yiddish
Hebrew

By Usage

obsolete or obsolescent
gonie, nounn.gonna, interjectionint.
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary Unit for South African English