Other forms: gouging, gouged, gouges
To gouge is to cut a deep groove, or to force something out. Gouge a channel, gouged out, a gouge in the wood.
As a noun a gouge is both the chisel with a curved blade and the groove it makes. Gouge out is the violent construction — gouge out an eye — and it is deliberately unpleasant. In American use, to gouge also means to overcharge, and price gouging in an emergency is illegal in many states. Note the Celtic origin, which is unusual for a tool word.
1verbgougeTo cut a deep groove, or to force something out.
“The dog's claws gouged deep scratches into the wooden door.”
2nouncurvedA curved chisel, or the groove it makes.
“The woodcarver used a small gouge to hollow out the bowl.”
gouge is a deep cutting.
Old French gouge comes through Latin from a Gaulish word for a chisel. Very few English tool words come from Celtic, which makes this one unusual.
Proto-Celtic
*gulbā
cel-gau
*gulbiā
Latin
goia
Old French
gouge
Middle English
gouge — chisel with concave blade; gouge
English, today
gouge
Built from
From Middle English gouge (“chisel with concave blade; gouge”), from Old French gouge, goi (“gouge”), from Latin goia, gubia, gulbia (“chisel; piercer”), borrowed from cel-gau gulbiā, from Proto-Celtic gulbā, gulbi, gulbīnos (“beak, bill”). The English word is cognate with Italian gorbia, gubbia (“ferrule”), obt golb, Old Irish gulba (“beak”), Portuguese goiva, Scottish Gaelic gilb (“chisel”), Spanish gubia (“chisel, gouge”), Welsh gylf (“beak; pointed instrument”), gylyf (“sickle”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire