The Oxford Thesaurus An A-Z Dictionary of Synonyms - shave v.

1) shear (off) , cut (off) , trim, clip, crop, snip off, remove: He made a mistake in shaving off his beard, as it hid his weak chin. 2) pare, scrape, plane, whittle: If you shave just a hair off this side, it will fit into the hole. --n. 3) close shave. narrow escape, Colloq narrow or near squeak, US squeaker: That was a close shave! - You almost fell out the window!