Dictionary

permanent shave en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

From the early 1900s, presumably a pun on permanent wave.

Meanings

1. (dated, idiomatic) A throat-slitting.
   • (ghost brandishing a noose:) “Brother, you sure gonna get your face lifted.” (ghost brandishing a razor:) “And a permanent shave! Ha! Ha! Ha!” 1930, Fleischer Studios, Swing You Sinners:
   • ‘Last chance,’ she said. ‘Or.’ ‘Or else,’ she said, pantomiming a knife being drawn across her throat. ‘You’re going to shave me?’ ‘A permanent shave,’ she said. 1999, Louis Rogers, Ladder to the Sky:
   • I walked right up to Ravus’s unconscious body with the intention of blasting his brains out, and that’s exactly what would have happened if the hot Fangorian who’d been escorting me to the table hadn’t pulled a blade from out of nowhere and held it up to my neck so hard that if I so much as breathed wrong I’d get a permanent shave. 2015, Steven Montano, The Last Acolyte:
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see permanent, shave.

Forms