Etymologically
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score

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 15 October 2026 at 19:28. This address is a permanent link to this version.
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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /skɔː/, US /skɔːr/[1]

Etymology

It is late inherited from Old English scoru (“twenty”),[2][3] borrowed from Old Norse skor (“notch, mark, tally; twenty”),[2][3][4] related to skera (“to cut”), the cognate of shear,[3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *sker- (“to cut”).[2] The verb is inherited from Middle English scoren, from the noun, perhaps reinforced by skora (“to notch, record”).[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Twenty: before 1100.[3] The idea was probably counting large numbers, as of a passing flock of sheep, by cutting a notch in a stick for each twenty.[2] Counting in twenties existed also in French and in the Celtic languages.[2]

Semantic evolution

A financial record, perhaps kept on tallies, is from about 1230, in the Ancrene Riwle,[3][2] and a reckoning or total amount from about 1330.[3] A notch, cut or line is from about 1400 in the OED.[6] A mark chalked up to count a customer's drinks is from the 1590s, extended about 1600 to “amount due, one's debt”,[2] as in settle a score.[7] A mark recording a point in a game is from the 1670s,[2] and the total points of the players is first found in Hoyle's treatise on whist (1742).[3][2] A written piece of music arranged for several instruments is from 1701, from lines connecting the staves.[3] The verb meant “to notch, record by notches” about 1390, in Chaucer,[3] “to gain a point” from 1742,[2] and in slang “to buy drugs” by 1935.[2] Scoreboard is from 1826.[3] In dialect, score could also be the core of an apple (Gloucestershire) or a patch of pasture (Lancashire).[8]

Timeline

  • before 1100 – twenty.[3]
  • c. 1230 – a financial record.[3]
  • c. 1330 – a total amount.[3]
  • c. 1390 – verb, to notch, record.[3]
  • c. 1600 – a debt.[2]
  • 1701 – a musical score.[3]
  • 1742 – points in a game.[3][2]
  • 1826 – scoreboard.[3]
  • 1935 – verb, to obtain drugs.[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. The number of points made by a player or team in a game.
  2. A result in a test: a high score.
  3. A group of twenty, or in the plural, many.
  4. A notch or line cut in a surface.
  5. A grievance or debt to be settled: settle old scores.
  6. The written form of a musical work, showing all the parts; the music for a film.

Verb

  1. To gain a point in a game; to achieve.
  2. To mark with cuts or lines.
  3. To arrange or write music for instruments.
  4. (slang) To obtain illegal drugs.

Word family

  • scorer
  • scoreless
  • fourscore
  • outscore
  • overscore
  • scorecard
  • threescore
  • underscore

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  8. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)