_"Shob," or "Shub," a Kentish Word._--Your correspondent on the Kentish
word _sheets_ (Vol. vi., p. 338.) may possibly be able to give some account
of another Kentish word, which I have met with in the country about
Horton-Kirby, Dartford, Crayford, &c., and the which I cannot find in
Halliwell, or any other dictionary in my possession,--viz. to _shob_ or
_shub_. It is applied to the trimming up elm-trees in the hedge-rows, by
cutting away all the branches except at the head: "to shob the trees" is
the expression. Now, in German we have _schaben_, v. r. to shave; but in
the Anglo-Saxon I find nothing nearer than _scaf_, part. _scof_, to shave.