shave.
To make (the head, skin etc.) bald or (the hair) shorter by using a tool such as a razor or electric clippers to cut the hair close to the skin.
Meaning & usage
To make (the head, skin etc.) bald or (the hair) shorter by using a tool such as a razor or electric clippers to cut the hair close to the skin.
To cut anything in this fashion.
To remove hair from one's face by this means.
I had little time to shave this morning.
To cut finely, for example slices of meat.
To skim along or near the surface of; to pass close to, or touch lightly, in passing.
To reduce in size, weight, time taken etc., usually by a small amount.
To be hard and severe in a bargain with; to practice extortion on; to cheat.
To buy (a note) at a discount greater than the legal rate of interest, or to deduct in discounting it more than the legal rate allows.
To injure by employing a knife.
Where this word comes from
Inherited from Middle English shaven, schaven, from Old English sċafan (“to shave, scrape, shred, polish”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaban, from Proto-Germanic *skabaną (“to scrape”), from Proto-Indo-European *skabʰ- (“to cut, split, form, carve”). Cognate with West Frisian skave, Dutch schaven, Low German schaven, German schaben, Danish skave, Norwegian Nynorsk skava, Swedish skava, Icelandic skafa, Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (skaban), all roughly “to scrape, chafe, shave, plane, remove the outer lay of”.
An instance of shaving.
I instructed the barber to give me a shave.
A thin slice; a shaving.
An exorbitant discount on a note.
A premium paid for an extension of the time of delivery or payment, or for the right to vary a stock contract in any particular.
A hand tool, mainly for woodworking, consisting of a sharp blade with a handle at each end.
A narrow miss or escape; a close shave.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English shave, from Old English sceafa, from Proto-Germanic *skabô.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.