sculpt

UK/skʌlpt/US/skʌlpt/

verbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,493 of 15,258leans spoken

Other forms: sculpted, sculpting, sculpts

To sculpt is to shape a figure by cutting away stone or wood. Everything that is not the statue comes off.

That is only half the art, since sculptors also build up in clay and cast in bronze, but the cutting sense is where the word comes from. It works figuratively for anything shaped carefully, so a sculpted physique and a landscape sculpted by ice are both standard. The noun is sculpture for the work and sculptor for the person. The adjective sculptural describes anything with strong three-dimensional form.

Definitions of sculpt

1verbsculptTo shape a figure by carving or modelling.B2+
“The angel was sculpted from a single block.”

Where it comes from

Latin
sculpō — to cut out, carve in stone
French
sculpter
English, today
sculpt

From French sculpter, from Latin sculpō (“to cut out, carve in stone”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 25 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

sculpt in the wild

In 1988, Jimmy Ridlon was commissioned to design and sculpt the Outland Trophy.
Outland Trophy
Fondant icing, also commonly just called fondant, is an icing used to decorate or sculpt cakes and pastries.
Fondant icing
The figures have characteristics similar to the competing Marvel Legends line in terms of detailed sculpting, articulation, and including a comic book or diorama with each figure.
DC Superheroes
The care with which Nature had sculpted Lucy, and then casually let her "race" end, reflects Wordsworth's view of the harsh reality of life.
Three years she grew in sun and shower
Although Nature is indifferent, it also cares for Lucy enough to both sculpt and mould her into its own.
Three years she grew in sun and shower

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the sculpō family

sculpture

sculpt — used about once every 8,972 pages · #11,493 · point at the bar for the others

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