carve
pronunciation
How to pronounce carve in British English:
UK [kɑːv]
How to pronounce carve in American English:
US [kɑːrv]
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- Verb:
- form by carving
- engrave or cut by chipping away at a surface
- cut to pieces
Word Origin
- carve
- carve: [OE] Originally, carve meant simply ‘cut’. That sense died out in the 16th century, leaving the more specialized ‘cut or incise decoratively’ and later ‘cut up meat at table’. Related words in other Germanic languages, such as Dutch kerven, point to a prehistoric West Germanic *kerfan, which is probably ultimately linked to Greek gráphein ‘write’ (source of English graphic), whose original notion was ‘scratch or incise on a surface’.=> graphic
- carve (v.)
- Old English ceorfan (class III strong verb; past tense cearf, past participle corfen) "to cut, cut down, slay; to carve, cut out, engrave," from West Germanic *kerfan (cognates: Old Frisian kerva, Middle Dutch and Dutch kerven, German kerben "to cut, notch"), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch," making carve the English cognate of Greek graphein "to write," originally "to scratch" on clay tablets with a stylus. Once extensively used, most senses now usurped by cut (v.). Meaning specialized to sculpture, meat, etc., by 16c. Related: Carved; carving. Original strong conjugation has been abandoned, but archaic carven lingers.
Example
- 1. What inspired people to spend hundreds of hours learning how to carve and draw ?
- 2. Carve out some quiet space for yourself .
- 3. We lie , cheat and steal , carve ornamentations into our own bodies , stress out and kill ourselves , and of course kill others .
- 4. Carving : pull off the turkey wings , cut off the drumstick and thigh bits and carve the entire bird straight across , widthwise .
- 5. President obama is attempting to carve out his own distinct path to fight terrorists worldwide and that includes abandoning use of the term " global war on terror . "