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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.