Dry Shave (A)

A shave without soaping the face; to scrape the face with a piece of iron hoop; to scratch the face; to box it and bruise it. Sometimes it means to beat and bruise generally; ill usage.

“The fellow will get a dry shave.”

Peter Pindar: Great Cry and Little Wool, Ep. 1.

“Iʹll shave her, like a punished soldier, dry.”

Peter Pindar: The Lousiad, canto ii.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.