SCAR


Meaning of SCAR in English

I. scar 1 /skɑː $ skɑːr/ BrE AmE noun [countable]

[ Date: 1300-1400 ; Language: Old French ; Origin: escare , from Late Latin eschara , from Greek ]

1 . MARK ON SKIN a permanent mark that is left on your skin after you have had a cut or wound:

He had a long, curved scar on his right cheek.

a deep cut that could leave a permanent scar

2 . FEELING a feeling of fear or sadness that remains with you for a long time after an unpleasant experience:

Her mental scars will take time to heal.

The war has left a deep scar on this community.

3 . DAMAGED AREA a place where the land or a building was damaged in the past

scar of

The landscape still bears the scars of the war.

4 . CLIFF British English a cliff on the side of a mountain

• • •

COLLOCATIONS (for Meaning 1)

■ adjectives

▪ a big/long scar

For the patients, keyhole surgery means no big scar.

▪ a small scar

She could see the small scar on his right cheek.

▪ a red/white scar

She still had the faint white scar on her ankle.

▪ a permanent scar

If the wound is not stitched, a permanent scar may result.

▪ an ugly/unsightly scar (=unattractive)

The ugly scar spoiled and distorted his face.

▪ a disfiguring scar (=spoiling someone’s appearance)

She was left with disfiguring scars.

▪ a puckered scar (=one where the skin has not healed flat)

She pulled back her hair and showed me a puckered scar near her ear.

▪ a surgical scar (=caused by a medical operation)

He had a large surgical scar on his back.

▪ a physical scar (=a scar on your body, contrasted with a mental scar )

Those three months left her with lifelong physical and psychological scars.

■ verbs

▪ leave a scar

The injury is deep and will leave quite a scar.

▪ have a scar

He had a small white scar under his left eye.

▪ bear a scar formal (=have it on your body)

He still bore the scars of its teeth on his leg.

▪ a scar runs somewhere

A scar ran from the corner of his eye to under his jawbone.

■ scar + NOUN

▪ scar tissue

His hand was rough with scar tissue.

• • •

COLLOCATIONS (for Meaning 2)

■ adjectives

▪ a deep scar

The death of his mother left a deep scar on the young boy.

▪ a permanent scar

That affair left a permanent scar on my heart.

▪ psychological/mental/emotional scars

The mental scars left by the accident are still with him.

■ verbs

▪ leave a scar (=leave someone with feelings of fear or sadness)

Psychologically, the attack has left a deep scar.

▪ carry/bear scars (=to suffer from feelings of fear or sadness )

These children will carry their emotional scars with them for the rest of their lives.

▪ scars heal

The mental scars will eventually heal.

• • •

THESAURUS

■ a mark on your skin

▪ blemish a mark on your skin that spoils its appearance:

John grew a beard to hide the blemishes on his chin.

▪ mole a small dark, sometimes raised, mark on your skin:

Some moles may become cancerous.

|

Helena found a mole on her arm which had definitely not been there before.

▪ freckles small light brown marks on your skin, especially on your face but also on your arms, shoulders etc:

She had a light sprinkling of freckles across her nose.

▪ birthmark a permanent mark on your skin that you have had since you were born:

There was a small birthmark on her left cheek.

▪ bruise a purple or brown mark on your skin that you get because you have fallen or been hit:

Her legs were covered in cuts and bruises.

▪ scar a permanent mark on your skin, caused by a cut or by something that burns you:

The injury left a small scar on his forehead.

▪ pimple/zit ( also spot British English ) a small raised red mark or lump on your skin, which usually appears when a child is between 12 and 18 years old:

When I was a teenager I had terrible spots.

|

The boy had a few pimples under his chin.

▪ wart a small hard raised mark on your skin caused by a virus:

His face was covered in hairy warts.

▪ blister a small area of skin that is swollen and full of liquid because it has been rubbed or burned:

There was a blister on his arm where the boiling milk had splashed him.

▪ rash an area of small red spots on your skin, caused by an illness or an ↑ allergy :

I can’t eat strawberries - they give me a rash.

II. scar 2 BrE AmE verb ( past tense and past participle scarred , present participle scarring ) [transitive]

1 . if a wound or cut scars you, it leaves a permanent mark on your body:

His hands were badly scarred by the fire.

She will probably be scarred for life.

2 . if an unpleasant experience scars you, it leaves you with a feeling of sadness or fear that continues for a long time:

She was scarred by her father’s suicide.

3 . to spoil the appearance of something SYN deface :

quarries that scar the landscape

• • •

COLLOCATIONS

■ adverbs

▪ be badly scarred

Her legs were badly scarred from a car accident.

▪ be permanently scarred

His face had been permanently scarred by smallpox.

▪ be hideously scarred (=in a very unattractive way)

The right side of her face was hideously scarred.

▪ be scarred for life (=get a permanent scar)

A little girl has been scarred for life in a tragic playground accident.

▪ leave somebody scarred

The surgery left her face and neck scarred.

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.      Longman - Словарь современного английского языка.