shave

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English shaven, inherited from Old English sceafan (“to scrape, pare away”),^[2][3][4] a strong verb (past tense scōf, past participle scafen) from Proto-Germanic *skabaną.^[3][5][6] It is cognate with Middle Dutch scāven (“to shave, scrape”) (modern schaven), Old High German skaban (modern schaben), Old Norse skafa and Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (skaban, “to shear, shave”).^[4][7][8] Barnhart and Etymonline take the root back to Proto-Indo-European *skabh-,^[4][3] and outside Germanic Barnhart and Weekley compare Latin scabō (“to scratch, scrape”);^[4][9] Orel adds Ancient Greek σκάπτω (skáptō, “to dig”) and Lithuanian skapoti (“to cut”).^[6] The OED notes that the pre-Germanic form is doubtful.^[7] The noun is sceafa, a scraping or paring tool,^[7][8] later reinforced by uses formed from the verb.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To scrape, or to pare away the surface of something with a sharp tool: Old English, in glossaries before 800.^[7][4] Removing hair with a razor is recorded from about 1200, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant scraping in general, and the sense of cutting hair close to the skin grew out of it in early Middle English.^[5][7] It was a strong verb in Old English but became weak in the 14th century; the old participle survives as shaven, mostly in literary use.^[5][3] In the 14th–15th centuries shaving the head was the mark of a cleric, so one could be "shaved a monk".^[7] From the scraping sense came figurative uses for fleecing a person of money (from the 1520s) and, in 16th-century cant, for stealing, which Fleetwood glossed in 1585 as filching a cloak or a spoon.^[7][10] The idea of a light, grazing touch gave the noun a close shave, a narrow escape, recorded from 1834,^[7] or 1856 in the figurative phrase according to Etymonline.^[3] Weekley links young shaver, a lad, to the old sense of swindling.^[9] In the United States, to shave a note was to discount it at an extortionate rate (1830s); since 1898 the verb has also meant to cut down an amount slightly.^[7][10]

Timeline

• before 800 – Old English sceafan, to scrape or pare.^[4][7]
• c. 1225 – to remove hair from the head with a razor.^[7][4]
• 1382 – to cut off in thin slices.^[7]
• 1585 – cant: to steal.^[10][7]
• 1604 – noun: something shaved off, a shaving.^[7][3]
• 1813 – military slang: an unconfirmed report.^[7]
• 1834 – a narrow escape, a close or near shave.^[7][3]
• 1838 – an act of shaving the beard.^[7][3]
• 1898 – to reduce an amount slightly (chiefly US).^[7]

Modern meaning

Verb

1. To cut hair, especially a beard, off the skin with a razor; to shave oneself.
2. To cut or pare thin slices or layers from something.
3. To trim or mow very closely.
4. To come very close to, or graze, in passing.
5. (informal) To reduce a price or amount by a small margin: the airline shaved ten minutes off the flight time.

Noun

1. An act or result of shaving.
2. A thin slice or shaving.
3. A tool for shaving or paring, as in spokeshave.

Word family

• shavable
• preshave
• shaver
• shavetail
• aftershave
• reshave
• shaveling
• unshaved

Usage notes

In Kent and Sussex dialect a shave was a small wood or a hedgerow, a variant of shaw.^[11]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ a b c Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)