incise

Etymology

It is borrowed from French inciser,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} recorded from the 15th century,^[2][3] for Old French enciser (“to cut, cut out, slice”), from the 12th century.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster allows Latin as a direct source as well,^[8] and Dictionary.com gives Latin alone.^[9] The French verb comes from Latin incīsus, past participle of incīdō (“to cut into, cut open, engrave”),^[3][2][10] which the American Heritage Dictionary reaches through a frequentative in Vulgar Latin, *incīsō.^[4] The Latin verb is formed from in- (“into”) and caedō (“to cut”),^{[3][4][5][10]} whose vowel changes in the compound,^[10] from Proto-Indo-European *kae-id- (“to strike”).^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make a cut, in surgery: about 1541, in R. Copland's translation of Guy de Chauliac's Questyonary of Cyrurgyens.^[2][8] Etymonline dates the word to the 1540s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From cutting into flesh the verb passed to cutting a surface generally, and to marking it: the OED first has “cut into, engrave with figures” in 1567.^[2] From 1633, in T. Carew's elegy on Donne, it could also take the thing produced as its object, so that one incised a figure or an inscription.^[2] Since 1893 geologists have said that a river incises a channel or valley.^[2][3] Latin incīdō also gave English the archaic verb incide, with the sense of cutting into tissue, recorded from 1598.^[2][8]

Timeline

• c. 1541 – to make a cut, in surgery.^[2][8]
• 1567 – to cut into; to cut marks or figures on.^[2]
• 1633 – to form or trace by cutting; to carve a figure or inscription.^[2]
• 1893 – of a river, to cut a channel or valley.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cut into something with a sharp tool; to make an incision in: The surgeon incised the skin along the old scar.^[8][4][2]
2. To cut marks into a surface; to engrave: The mason incised the slab with the family's name.^[8][4][11]
3. To produce letters, lines or a design by cutting into a surface; to carve.^[11][8][4]
4. (geology) Of a river, to cut a channel or valley by erosion.^[8][2][5]

Word family

• incisal

Related words

• incision
• incisive
• incisor
• incide
• concise
• caesura

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins