'Razor' gave us 'erase' (scrape away), 'raze' (scrape down), and 'rascal' (originally 'scrapings,' the dregs).
An instrument with a sharp blade used to remove unwanted hair from the face or body.
From Old French 'rasor' (razor), from 'raser' (to scrape, to shave, to graze), from Vulgar Latin *rasāre, frequentative of Latin 'rādere' (to scrape, to shave, to scratch), past participle 'rāsus,' from PIE *reh₁d- (to scrape, to scratch, to gnaw). A razor is literally 'a scraper' — an instrument for scraping hair from the skin. Key roots: *reh₁d- (Proto-Indo-European: "to scrape, to scratch, to gnaw").
'Razor,' 'erase,' 'raze,' 'abrasion,' and 'rascal' all come from Latin 'rādere' (to scrape). A razor scrapes hair. To erase is to scrape away writing. To raze is to scrape a building to the ground. An abrasion is a scraping of skin. And a rascal was originally a 'scrapings' — the dregs of society, the scrapings from the