To shave, is to cut off a portion of the outside; hence to strip, deprive, take away unjustly, as a robber or hard dealer one who does this is a shaver. This word, in the United States, is applied to money brokers, who purchase notes at more than legal interest. Banks, when they resort to any means to obtain a large discount, are also called shavers, or shaving banks. Many such are known, but they evade the penalty of the usury laws by discounting at legal interest, and giving the proceeds of the note so discounted, in a draft on some distant place, or in uncurrent money; which are again purchased by the bank or its agents at a discount.
They fell into the hands of the cruel mountain-people, living for the most part by theft, and waiting for wrecks, as hawks for their prey; by these shavers the Turks were stripp'd of all they had.--Knolles's History of the Turks.
To sell our notes, at a great loss, to brokers, or, in other words, to get them unmercifully shaved, was what we wished to avoid.--Perils of Pearl Street, p. 123.