Scarring

How to spell scarring

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scarring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scarring mean?

1. nounPermanent marks or tissue left on the skin or an organ after a wound heals.
2. adjectiveCausing deep and lasting emotional damage.

Scarring in a sentence

• noun

  The surgeon explained that the operation would leave minimal scarring.

• adjective

  Losing the family home was a deeply scarring experience for the children.

• noun

  Deep acne can cause lasting scarring on the cheeks.

• adjective

  The witnesses described the crash as a scarring thing to see.

Where does scarring come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The base word scar arrived in English in the late 1300s from the Old French escar(re), itself drawn from the Late Latin eschara, which in turn came from the Greek eskhara meaning a hearth or fireplace, and then by extension a scab formed on a burn. The medical sense of a healed-over mark on the skin grew naturally from that idea of the crust that forms after a burn. The form scarring adds the -ing ending, doubling the r because scar is a short, stressed single-syllable word ending in a single vowel plus consonant, the same rule that turns star into starring. That doubled r is the whole spelling trap, since the unrelated verb scare produces scaring with one r. Over time scarring broadened from purely physical marks to describe lasting emotional damage.

How the word is built

• scar (mark left by a healed wound)
• doubled r
• -ing (forming a noun or participle)