To cut down. Used primarily of reducing the size and rank of a vessel.
1837. It’s mostly owing to my being so tall. I wish I was razee’d, and then it wouldn’t happen.—J. C. Neal, ‘Charcoal Sketches,’ p. 77.
1837. For some reason, some accident, it is supposed, in his infancy, his legs had never grown in length since he was three years old: they were stout as well as his body, but not more than eighteen inches from the hip to the heel; and he consequently waddled about a very ridiculous figure, for he was like a man razeed or cut down.—Marryat, ‘Snarleyyow; or, the Dog Fiend,’ ch. v. (N.E.D.) (Italics in the original.)
1842. When a bill should appear, razeeing all salaries pro rata, Mr. Gordon of N.Y. would consider it: House of Repr., March 15: Cong. Globe, p. 321.
1843. My wife will razee the [shoe] straps, and then the affairs will look masculine enough.—B. R. Hall (‘Robert Carlton’), ‘The New Purchase,’ ii. 195.
1844. Tell the carpenter to razee a couple of water-casks, for I want to lay in a store to-morrow of fat turtle.—Watmough, ‘Scribblings and Sketches,’ p. 101.
1846. One razee, two frigates, &c…. In twelve months, two small frigates could be razeed to large corvette sloops.—Mr. Fairfield of Maine, U.S. Senate, June 27: Cong. Globe, p. 253.
1847. The ‘Chicken Mauma’ was persecuting the Cherokee advocate with her razeed (i. e., reduced,) offers in reference to the sale of the ‘funny chickens.’—Knick. Mag., xxix. 496 (June). (Italics in the original.)
a. 1854. Human life is razeed to the pitiable period of three-score years and ten.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iv. 127.
