score

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The number of points each side has won in a game or contest.

   The final score was 7 to 0.

2. 2
   verb

   To win a point, goal, or run in a game.

   The home team scored in the last minute of the match.

3. 3
   verb

   To achieve a certain result in a test or assessment.

   I scored very high on the exam.

4. 4
   noun

   The real facts about a situation.

   They didn't know the score until someone explained what had happened.

5. 5
   noun

   A group of twenty.

   A score of soldiers were sent, but only one returned.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Score comes from an Old Norse verb meaning “to make a cut or notch.” Its numerical sense “twenty” arose from counting by cutting notches on a tally, while the musical sense, recorded from the early 18th century, reflects the former practice of joining related staves with lines.

From Middle English score, skore, schore, from Old English scoru (“notch; tally; score”), from Old Norse skor, from Proto-Germanic *skurō (“incision; tear; rift”), which is related to *skeraną (“to cut”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“cut”). Cognate with Icelandic skora, Swedish skåra, Danish skår. Related to shear. For the sense “twenty”: The mark on a tally made by drovers for every twenty beasts passing through a tollgate.

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External links

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