shave
Americanverb (used without object)
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shaves,
present (3rd person singular)
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shaved,
past participle, past
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shaven,
past participle
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shaving
present participle
verb (used with object)
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shaves,
present (3rd person singular)
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shaved,
past participle, past
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shaven,
past participle
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shaving
present participle
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to remove hair from (the face, legs, etc.) by cutting it off close to the skin with a razor.
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to cut off (hair, especially the beard) close to the skin with a razor (often followed by off oraway ).
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to cut or scrape away the surface of with a sharp-edged tool.
to shave hides in preparing leather.
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to reduce to shavings or thin slices.
to shave wood.
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to cut or trim closely.
to shave a lawn.
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to scrape, graze, or come very near to.
The car just shaved the garage door.
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Commerce. to purchase (a note) at a rate of discount greater than is legal or customary.
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to reduce or deduct from.
The store shaved the price of winter suits in the spring.
noun
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shaves
plural
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the act, process, or an instance of shaving or being shaved.
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a thin slice; a shaving.
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any of various tools for shaving, scraping, removing thin slices, etc.
verb
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(also intr) to remove (the beard, hair, etc) from (the face, head, or body) by scraping the skin with a razor
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to cut or trim very closely
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to reduce to shavings
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to remove thin slices from (wood, etc) with a sharp cutting tool; plane or pare
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to touch or graze in passing
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informal to reduce (a price) by a slight amount
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commerce to purchase (a commercial paper) at a greater rate of discount than is customary or legal
noun
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the act or an instance of shaving
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any tool for scraping
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a thin slice or shaving
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an instance of barely touching something
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informal a narrow escape
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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reshaveverb
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shavableadjective
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shaveableadjective
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unshavableadjective
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unshaveableadjective
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unshavedadjective
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well-shavedadjective
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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shavesimple
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shavessimple
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have shavedperfect
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have shavenperfect
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has shavedperfect
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has shavenperfect
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am shavingprogressive
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are shavingprogressive
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is shavingprogressive
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have been shavingperfect progressive
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has been shavingperfect progressive
Past
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shavedsimple
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had shavedperfect
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had shavenperfect
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was shavingprogressive
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were shavingprogressive
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had been shavingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of shave
before 900; (v.) Middle English schaven, schafen, Old English sc ( e ) afan; cognate with Dutch schaven to plane (a plank), abrade (the skin), Low German schaven, German schaben, Old Norse skafa to scrape, Gothic skaban to shear, shave; (noun) Middle English schave tool for shaving, Old English sc ( e ) afa, derivative of the v.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
When her hair began falling out during chemotherapy she decided to shave her head, but wanted to make it as positive an experience as possible for her children.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2026
I am a cyclist who does not shave my legs or arms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 3, 2026
Drought and record heatwaves across France this summer will shave 0.1 percent off the country's economic growth this year, adding to the heavy human toll, the finance ministry said Wednesday.
From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026
One of the goals of the merger is to shave costs by consolidating overlapping business divisions and back-office functions.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
Starry looks into the mirror where our father used to shave every morning.
From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins
A sermon used to take him 10 to 15 hours to prepare; a chatbot doing first-pass research and phrasing shaves off several of them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
The tram offers hikers who don’t feel like taking the strenuous Cactus to Clouds route: From the tram’s Mountain Station, you can hike 10 miles out and back, which shaves off about 10 arduous miles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2025
The 37-year-old millionaire has also posted images of hundreds of inmates, their head shaves, in orange uniforms being moved to a new mega-prison, echoing moves by El Salvador's Nayib Bukele.
From Barron's ● Nov. 16, 2025
Unless polling shows that he shaves a point or so off of their own races, in which case they’ll wave him off.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2024
"Oh, yes, this is it. Fifteen days after death. Prayers. Oldest son shaves head and recites after priest."
From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins
The new name plaques adorn the wall of a long corridor and are displayed next to many images of prisoners dressed in striped shirts with shaved heads.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
For me, that has meant chicken with scallions and frozen ginger cubes; shaved corn with poblano and onion; butternut squash with thyme and shallots; grated tomato with basil and garlic.
From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026
Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., operates a claw-machine arcade with more than 100 units, plus bubble tea and Korean shaved ice.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
It also shaved off time those same children were held by CBP or in airports or hotels.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026
Dad rubs his chin, which he hasn’t shaved in a while since he’s growing in a beard.
From "A Soft Place to Land" by Janae Marks
Who knows where the trend began, but I remain clean shaven.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
Washbourne, 40, is described as white, male, about 5ft 6ins, slim, with brown hair and clean shaven.
From BBC ● Jan. 3, 2026
She had spotted her son in the image, taken from above, of a sea of shaven heads belonging to men in white T-shirts sat in long, straight rows.
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2025
And then there are the images of the migrants deported to a notorious El Salvador prison, shackled one behind the other in prison garb, their heads bowed and shaven.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
The wood stood all round the hill like thick hair that ended sharply in a circle round a shaven crown.
From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Schick revolutionized shaving with injector razors and multiblades in a single cartridge, slugging it out in the marketplace for decades with rival shaving giant Gillette.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 16, 2026
Except for the part where they pluck and prune themselves into the hairlessness of a dolphin; “Love is Blind’s” Zack Goytowski and “Love Island’s” Zach Georgiou both cop to shaving their legs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
She decided to embrace her new look, by shaving her head after she lost some of her hair from chemotherapy.
From BBC ● Aug. 18, 2026
“Cancer has a way of taking things you never realized you’d grieve,” she wrote alongside a video of the parents shaving Whimsy’s head.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026
He even used two shaving brushes to lather his face, because he found that by so doing he could cut seventeen seconds off his shaving time.
From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
