green-shave

English

Alternative forms

• green shave

Verb

green-shave (third-person singular simple present green-shaves, present participle green-shaving, simple past and past participle green-shaved)

1. (transitive) To scrape the flesh side of an untanned hide.
   • 1885, Henry Mills Alden, Harper's New Monthly Magazine - Volume 70, page 279:

     There are diverse opinions as to the relative value of liming or sweating, pin-wheeling, milling, green-shaving or “ fleshing,” and whether “sewed” or “open-tanned” goat-skins are preferable.

   • 1887, Canadian Patent Office Record - Volumes 15-16, page 8:

     In a machine for unhairing or green-shaving hides or skins, the combination of the following instrumentalities, to wit : a rotary table, means for securing a hide or skin to said table, a journalled roll provided peripherally with scrapers or cutters, means for causing said scrapers or cutters, means for causing scrapers or cutters to press against the hide or skin and operative mechanism for the table and roll, substatially as set forth.

   • 1889, Annual report of the Bureau of Animal Industry - Volume 4, Parts 1887-1888, page 425:

     The sides, after being unhaired, are put in clean water over night, then green-shaved and put in a bate of hen manure four or five days.

   • 1891, John W. Stevens, Leather Manufacture:

     The most convincing argument for those tanners who continue to green-shave their hides would be to pick out several of the large green shavings and tan them.

Derived terms

• green-shaving (noun)