Shaved

How to spell shaved

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce shaved

What does shaved mean?

1. verbPast tense of shave: removed hair from the skin, or cut a thin layer from a surface, using a blade.
2. adjectiveCut very short or cut into thin slices; having had hair or a layer removed.

Shaved in a sentence

• verb

  He shaved before the interview to look presentable.

• adjective

  The salad was topped with shaved parmesan and a squeeze of lemon.

• verb

  The carpenter shaved a fine layer off the door so it would close.

• adjective

  His closely shaved head made him look years younger.

Where does shaved come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past tense and past participle of the verb 'shave', which descends from the Old English verb sceafan, meaning to scrape, pare, or smooth a surface by cutting thin slivers from it. That word grew from a much older Germanic root that also gave German schaben (to scrape) and is distantly related to words about cutting and carving. For centuries the action was about smoothing wood or other materials before it narrowed to the now familiar sense of removing hair from the skin with a blade. Older verbs of this type once had irregular forms such as 'shove' or 'shoven', but over time the regular '-d' ending won out, giving us the modern, simple spelling 'shaved'. The single vowel and silent final 'e' of 'shave' carry straight into the past form, so the trap is mainly remembering that no letter doubles before the '-d'.

How the word is built

• shave (Old English sceafan: to scrape or pare)
• -d (past tense / past participle suffix)