Sentence:  This man pauses in his shaving to squint at the piece of paper again, razor hesitant, eye returning anxious but reluctant to the blurred letters. [...] He <WSD>nicks</WSD> himself and the tired blood trickles a moment, stops easily these days almost before the cotton-wool sticks. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.