Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Scar
/skɑːr/noun
The mark left on skin or tissue after a wound heals.
The Greek roots
ἐσχάρα
eschára
hearth, brazier; burn scab
Literally: “fireplace, the crust a burn leaves”
Follow a root:ἐσχάρα1 word
The story of the word
Two English words are spelled scar, and the cliff one is Norse. This one runs back to Greek ἐσχάρα, a hearth or brazier, which Greek physicians used for the crust a burn leaves behind. The sense slid from the fire to the mark the fire makes, then to any healed wound. Surgeons still write eschar for the dead crust, keeping the older shape of the same word alive one shelf away.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Late Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
escharescharotic
In a sentence
The scar under his eyebrow came from a radiator, aged four.