Scoring

How to spell scoring

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scoring

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scoring mean?

1. verbGaining points, goals, or marks in a game, test, or competition.
2. verbComposing or arranging music, especially writing the soundtrack for a film.
3. verbCutting a shallow line or groove into a surface to mark or weaken it.

Scoring in a sentence

• The striker has been scoring regularly all season.

• The composer spent months scoring the documentary's emotional final scene.

• The baker recommends scoring the top of the loaf before it goes in the oven.

• Scoring well on the entrance exam improved her chances of a place.

• Scoring for a full orchestra demands careful attention to each instrument.

• The glazier was scoring the pane carefully so it would snap along a clean edge.

Where does scoring come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

This word grows from 'score', which English took from the Old Norse 'skor', meaning a notch, a cut, or a tally mark. Norse and early English shepherds and merchants kept count by cutting notches into a stick or tally, so 'score' came to mean both the mark itself and the running count it recorded, which is exactly how it became the word for points won in a game. The same counting habit gave 'score' its sense of 'twenty', since large tallies were often grouped in twenties. The 'ing' ending is the ordinary English suffix that turns a verb into its present participle and gerund, so 'scoring' simply names the act of cutting, counting, or recording points. The spelling keeps the silent 'e' of 'score' dropped before the suffix, which is the regular pattern and the only real trap here. The notion of cutting a line into a surface, as a baker or glazier does, preserves the oldest, most literal sense of all.

How the word is built

• score (from Old Norse skor: a notch or tally)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)