scar

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   mark with a scar

   The skin disease scarred my face permanently.

2. 2
   noun

   A permanent negative effect on someone's mind, caused by a traumatic experience.

   Thus, it is wise to avoid cultivating an emotional scar, as it can play havoc with your happiness and success.

3. 3
   noun

   Any permanent mark resulting from damage.

   Her age-old weapons, flood and fire, left scars on the canyon which time will never efface.

4. 4
   verb

   To mark the skin permanently.

   Yet I'll not shed her blood; / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow.

5. 5
   verb

   To form a scar.

   Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.

6. 6
   verb

   To affect deeply in a traumatic manner.

   Seeing his parents die in a car crash scarred him for life.

7. 7
   noun

   A cliff or rock outcrop.

   O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, / ⁠And thinner, clearer, farther going! / O sweet and far from cliff and scar / ⁠The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!

8. 8
   noun

   an indication of damage

Etymology

From Middle English scar, scarre, a conflation of Old French escare (“scab”) (from Late Latin eschara, from Ancient Greek ἐσχάρα (eskhára, “scab left from a burn”), and thus a doublet of eschar) and Middle English skar (“incision, cut, fissure”) (from Old Norse skarð (“notch, chink, gap”), from Proto-Germanic *skardaz (“gap, cut, fragment”)). Akin to Old Norse skor (“notch, score”), Old English sċeard (“gap, cut, notch”). More at shard. Displaced native Old English dolg, dolgswæþ, and wundswaþu (“scar”). Not related to scarify.