scar
/skɑː
/noun
1A mark left on the skin or within body tissue where a wound, burn, or sore has not healed completely and fibrous connective tissue has developed: a faint scar ran the length of his left cheek...
- After her examination, but by this time armed with remorse and guilt, I asked for the meaning of the multiple burn scars on her skin.
- Her burns were slowly healing and turning into scars, the skin on the back her neck was still a little black and her skin was still peeling.
- Other treatments for burn scars can include massage therapy and steroid drugs.
Synonyms
cicatrix;
mark, blemish, disfigurement, discoloration, defacement;
pockmark, pock, pit;
wound, lesion, burn;
birthmark, naevus;
(scars) Christianity stigmata
1.1A lasting effect of grief, fear, or other emotion left on a person’s character by an unpleasant experience: the attack has left mental scars on Terry and his family...
- Her honesty helped me realize that my mental and emotional scars were far more disfiguring than my physical ones.
- I generally haven't played characters that have deep emotional scars and trauma, and I loved diving into the mind of a troubled character.
- Their traumatic experiences have left deep emotional scars and impacted on their lives enormously.
Synonyms
trauma, damage, shock, injury, suffering, upset
1.2A mark left on something following damage of some kind: Max could see scars of the blast...
- They are paint patches covering rocket blast scars from the political violence of mid-1997.
- I followed scars posing as roads and faded tracks not shown on any map yet drawn.
- Charlie sat down at the table, and traced its scars and stains with her eyes.
1.3A mark left at the point of separation of a leaf, frond, or other part from a plant: this fossil bark is typified by its lozenge-shaped leaf scars...
- The ‘root’ is not a true root but the swollen base of the stem, and these marks are leaf scars.
- Leaf scars, which resemble suction cups, are found on the winter twigs when the leaves fall.
- These two parts should snap apart easily by hand and leave a clean scar on the new corm.
2A steep high cliff or rock outcrop, especially of limestone: high limestone scars bordered the road...
- They bring a mad burst of colour to the silver and green countryside of the Peak, with its superlush pastures, twinkly trout streams and shining limestone scars.
- There were white geese by the water, there's a pale scar of limestone if you look back, no snow but snowdrops, and then Rievaulx.
- It's great here, short turf, long views, scree, caves and stream, and parallel and looming 300 feet above, a twisted limestone scar.
Middle English: from Old Norse sker 'low reef'
verb (scars, scarring, scarred) [with object]
1Mark with a scar or scars: he is likely to be scarred for life after injuries to his face, arms, and legs (as adjective, in combination -scarred) battle-scarred troops...
- She has confided in me that she's afraid her son has been scarred for life by his father's treatment.
- But the ones who survive risk being scarred for life.
- Wrinkled and scarred though they were, she could tell these arms were his own and that in reality he wanted them to stay that way.
Synonyms
disfigure, mark, blemish, blotch, discolour;
pockmark, pit;
Christianity stigmatize
damage, spoil, mar, deface, injure
rare disfeature
traumatize, damage, injure, wound;
distress, disturb, upset
1.1 [no object] Form or be marked with a scar: his arm will not scar such lung scarring is associated with cigarette smoking...
- The case centred around pleural plaques, a benign condition which causes scarring to the lung lining and which is caused by exposure to asbestos.
- You have been diagnosed by your physician as having one of the many diseases which can cause interstitial pulmonary fibrosis or what we call lung scarring.
- Three main diseases are related to asbestos: asbestosis, or lung scarring, lung cancer and mesothelioma, or cancer of the lining of the chest or abdomen.
Derivatives
scarless
- Visitors will progress along a timeline of discovery, featuring the most significant breakthroughs, from atomic theory to current science developments such as robotics and scarless tissue healing.
- Interestingly, depending on the gestational age, myofibroblasts can disappear from the wound site, a phenomenon that has been correlated to scarless wound healing.
- She looked like Aeris, but was a good bit thinner, and scarless.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French escharre, via late Latin from Greek eskhara 'scab'.