scar
/skɑɹ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.77 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A permanent negative effect on someone's mind, caused by a traumatic experience.
noun
A cliff or rock outcrop.
noun
A rock in the sea breaking out from the surface of the water.
Example Sentences
- "Thus, it is wise to avoid cultivating an emotional scar, as it can play havoc with your happiness and success."
- "Her age-old weapons, flood and fire, left scars on the canyon which time will never efface."
- "But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others,” and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates."
- "There is a real scar on the landscape, but it reminds me exactly of scenes I photographed from the construction of High Speed 1 in Kent and Essex, and of the Norton Bridge flyover in Staffordshire. Scars heal, and the replanting and rewilding that Penny had shown me at Cubbington display the early stages."
- "Yet I'll not shed her blood; / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow."
- "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."
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /skɑɹ/
- British English: /skɑː(ɹ)/