scar

Meanings

Noun

• A permanent mark on the skin, sometimes caused by the healing of a wound.
• A permanent negative effect on someone's mind, caused by a traumatic experience.
• Any permanent mark resulting from damage.
• A cliff or rock outcrop.
• A rock in the sea breaking out from the surface of the water.
• A bare rocky place on the side of a hill or mountain.
• A marine food fish, the scarus or parrotfish (family Scaridae).

Verb

• To mark the skin permanently.
• To form a scar.
• To affect deeply in a traumatic manner.

Related

Similar words

• cicatrice, cicatrix

Origin

• From Middle English scar, scarre, a conflation of Old French escare (from Late Latin eschara, from Ancient Greek ἐσχάρα ("scab left from a burn"), and thus a eschar) and Middle English skar (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 .
• From Middle English scarre, skarr, skerre, sker, a borrowing from Old Norse sker. Cognate with Icelandic sker, Norwegian skjær, Swedish skär, Danish skær, German Schäre. skerry.
• From Latin scarus ("a kind of fish"), from Ancient Greek σκάρος ("{{vern"), Sparisoma cretense (species), syn. Scarus cretensis (species)}}.