Scarring

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. The condition resulting from injuries that leaves marks on skin while representing long-term changes in tissue due to damage involves fibrous tissue formation upon healing
2. The lasting mark formed on skin or tissue following damage and healing processes that replace normal tissue with fibrous tissue
3. A visible or tactile sign on the body caused by the healing of wounds where normal cells are substituted by dense connective tissue

Etymology: The surprising part is that "scar" has three unrelated origins that merged into one word. One strand comes from a Greek word for the scab left by a burn, "eskhara," which passed through Late Latin "eschara" and Old French "escare" before reaching English. Another comes from Old Norse "skarð," meaning a notch, gap or cut, which is related to the English "shard" and "score." A third is a borrowing from Old Norse "sker," meaning an isolated rock in the sea, the same root as "skerry." Middle English speakers blended the first two, so the wound sense and the cut sense became one word. Meanwhile, English already had its own words for this mark. Old English speakers used "dolg," "dolgswæþ" and "wundswaþu," and these native terms were displaced by the French-derived and Norse-derived forms. The "scar" in "scarring" is therefore a word that survived by absorbing its rivals, not one that pushed out an older native term without trace.

Synonyms: marking, blemishing, damaging, injuring, wounding

Antonyms: healing, repairing, restoring, mending, curing