scar.
A permanent mark on the skin, sometimes caused by the healing of a wound.
Meaning & usage
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.
Where this word comes from
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.
To mark the skin permanently.
To form a scar.
To affect deeply in a traumatic manner.
Seeing his parents die in a car crash scarred him for life.
Where this word comes from
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.
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.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English scarre, skarr, skerre, sker, a borrowing from Old Norse sker (“an isolated rock in the sea; skerry”). Cognate with Icelandic sker, Norwegian skjær, Swedish skär, Danish skær, German Schäre. Doublet of skerry and scaur.
A marine food fish, the scarus or parrotfish (family Scaridae).
Where this word comes from
From Latin scarus (“a kind of fish”), from Ancient Greek σκάρος (skáros, “parrot wrasse, Sparisoma cretense, syn. Scarus cretensis”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.