Carve
noun, verb ·Common ·Middle school level
Definitions
- 1 A carucate. obsolete
"... half a carve of arable land in Ballyncore, one carve of arable land in Pales, a quarter of arable land in Clonnemeagh, half a carve of arable land in Ballyfaden, half a carve of arable land in Ballymadran, ..."
- 2 The act of carving
"Give that turkey a careful carve."
- 1 To cut. archaic
"My good blade carves the casques of men, / My tough lance thrusteth sure, / My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure."
- 2 cut to pieces wordnet
- 3 To cut meat in order to serve it.
"You carve the roast and I’ll serve the vegetables."
- 4 form by carving wordnet
- 5 To shape to sculptural effect; to produce (a work) by cutting, or to cut (a material) into a finished work, especially with cuts that are curved rather than only straight slices.
"to carve a name into a tree"
Show 4 more definitions
- 6 engrave or cut by chipping away at a surface wordnet
- 7 To perform a series of turns without pivoting, so that the tip and tail of the snowboard take the same path.
- 8 To take or make, as by cutting; to provide. figuratively
"[…] who could easily have carved themselves their own food."
- 9 To lay out; to contrive; to design; to plan.
"Lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"At times I confuse curve with carve."
Etymology
From Middle English kerven, from Old English ceorfan, from Proto-West Germanic *kerban, from Proto-Germanic *kerbaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- (“to scratch”). Cognate with West Frisian kerve, Dutch kerven, Low German karven, German kerben (“to notch”); also Old Prussian gīrbin (“number”), Old Church Slavonic жрѣбии (žrěbii, “lot, tallymark”), Ancient Greek γράφειν (gráphein, “to scratch, etch”).