gash

gash¹ deep cut

Etymology

The word for a deep cut is inherited from Middle English garse (“a cut, gash, wound”), with the verb garsen (“to make cuts in, scarify”),^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French garser (“to scarify, cut, slash”), also jarser,^{[3][4][5][2][6]} the source of French gercer (“to chap, crack”).^[3][6][7] The Anglo-Norman verb is recorded from 1165–80.^[8] The modern form lost its r and changed its s: the OED sees a sporadic change of /s/ to /ʃ/ after /r/, shown by “garsshe” in Palsgrave (1530), then the assimilation of /r/,^[3][5] as in bass and dace,^[5][7][9] perhaps helped by slash, although the OED finds that the dates make this difficult.^[3][10][11] The modern verb is either a conversion of the noun or the same change in the older verb.^[3] The Old French verb glosses Late Latin charaxō (“to scratch, engrave”),^[3][12] through a reconstructed Vulgar Latin *charassāre,^[4][5] from Ancient Greek χαράσσω (kharássō, “to sharpen, cut, engrave”),^{[4][5][12][13][6]} the source of character,^[13][14][6] though the OED says the identification has phonological difficulties and Hoad calls the development perhaps abnormal.^[3][7] Etymonline traces the Greek verb to Proto-Indo-European *gher- (“to scrape, scratch”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A cut or wound, in the form garse: about 1225, in the Ancrene Riwle, of the wounds of a scourging.^[3][2][5] The verb garsen is recorded from 1398, in Trevisa, for making surgical cuts.^[3][2][5] The form with -sh is first recorded in 1528 for the noun, in the revised OED,^[3] against 1548 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster Unabridged,^[5][14] and in 1562 for the verb,^[3] against 1566 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged and 1570 in Barnhart.^[14][5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the verb belonged to surgery, for cutting the skin to drain a wound or let blood,^[2][13] and the old form survived to 1541 for the verb and 1611 for the noun.^[3] The modern noun spread from wounds to a cut in any material and to a cleft or crevice, from 1575.^[3] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a deep and wide wound.^[15] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a deep narrow depression in the land, natural or made, as in road building.^[14] In 19th-century American slang the word meant the mouth (1852, in Uncle Tom's Cabin).^[3][9] The coarse slang sense of the vulva is dated to the mid-1700s by Etymonline,^[4] about 1786, in Burns, by Green's Dictionary of Slang,^[16] and 1873 by the OED;^[3] Green finds that it was simply anatomical in the 18th century and has been derogatory since the 20th.^[16] In dialect the noun also meant a rent or gap, as in a hedge in the north of Ireland.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1225 – as garse, a cut or wound (obsolete by 1611).^[3][2]
• 1398 – as garsen, to make surgical cuts in (obsolete by 1541).^[3][2]
• 1528 – as gash, a long deep wound.^[3]
• 1562 – verb, to make gashes in.^[3]
• 1575 – a cut in any material; a cleft.^[3]
• 1694 – the act of making a long deep cut.^[3]
• 1852 – American slang, the mouth.^[3]
• 1873 – coarse slang, the vulva or vagina.^[3]
• 1980 – intransitive verb, to open in a gash.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A long deep cut or wound, especially in the flesh: The broken glass left a gash across his palm.^[18][14][3]
2. A long opening or cleft in any material, or a deep narrow depression in the land.^[14][3][19]
3. (rare) The act of making such a cut.^[3][14]
4. (vulgar slang) The vulva; offensively, a woman regarded in sexual terms.^{[14][3][19][10]}
5. (US slang, now rare) The mouth.^[3][9]

Verb

1. To make a long deep cut in; to slash: The falling slate gashed his shoulder.^{[18][14][3][19]}
2. To rough-cut the teeth of a gear wheel before finishing them.^[14]
3. To make a gash, or to open in one.^[9][3]

Word family

• ungashed
• gashy

gash² waste, something spare

Etymology

The word for waste or something spare is of uncertain origin in the OED and the Shorter Oxford,^[3][9] and of unknown origin in Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English.^[14][18][19] The OED suggests that it may be shortened from a northern English and Scots word gaishen, a skeleton or a silly-looking person, itself uncertain;^[3][16] it thinks a connection with French gâcher (“to do badly, to ruin, to waste”) unlikely, in view of the early currency of the noun.^[3] Green's Dictionary of Slang takes the Australian noun from a printers' term for waste matter.^[16] The adjective appears to come from the noun.^[3][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Something superfluous; waste: 1937, in Blackwood's Magazine.^[3] The OED adds forms that may belong here, gashions, extras of anything, in 1925, and gashens, refuse, in 1938.^[3] The Shorter Oxford dates the noun to the early 20th century and calls it originally nautical,^[9] and the Oxford Dictionary of English dates it to the 1920s.^[19]

Semantic evolution

The noun started in naval slang,^[9][19] and covers both what is left over and what is thrown away.^[3] The adjective, "spare, extra, free", follows in 1938,^[3] and Green's Dictionary of Slang quotes a British book of 1945 for something “goin' gash”.^[16] In Australia the word was recorded from 1943 for a second helping of food,^[16] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged defines the noun as extra food or the garbage left after a meal.^[14]

Timeline

• 1937 – something superfluous; waste, rubbish.^[3]
• 1938 – adjective, superfluous, spare, free.^[3]
• 1943 – in Australia, a second helping of food.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (slang) Waste or rubbish; something left over.^[3][9][14]
2. (slang) Extra food, such as a second helping.^[14][16]

Adjective

1. (slang) Surplus to requirements; spare, extra or free.^{[3][9][16][18]}