gouge

The blade of this wood gouge (sense 1.1) curves upwards so that it can be used to cut grooves

A gouge (sense 1.1) being used to make a linocut

From Middle English gǒuǧe (“chisel with concave blade; gouge”), from Old French gouge, goi (“gouge”), from Late Latin goia,[1] gubia, gulbia (“chisel; piercer”), borrowed from Gaulish *gulbiā, from Proto-Celtic *gulbā, *gulbi, *gulbīnos (“beak, bill”). The English word is cognate with Italian gorbia, gubbia (“ferrule”), Old Breton golb, Old Irish gulba (“beak”), Portuguese goiva, Scottish Gaelic gilb (“chisel”), Spanish gubia (“chisel, gouge”), Welsh gylf (“beak; pointed instrument”), gylyf (“sickle”).[2]

The verb is derived from the noun.[3]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡaʊdʒ/, /ɡuːdʒ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡaʊdʒ/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊd͡ʒ

gouge (plural gouges)

1. Senses relating to cutting tools.
   1. A chisel with a curved blade for cutting or scooping channels, grooves, or holes in wood, stone, etc.
      • 1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter VIII, in The Pioneers, or The Sources of the Susquehanna; a Descriptive Tale. [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, New York, N.Y.: Published by Charles Wiley; J. Seymour, printer, OCLC 1076549695, page 118:

        The "steeple" was a little cupola, reared on the very centre of the roof, on four tall pillars of pine, that were fluted with a gouge, and loaded with mouldings.

      • 1842 January 22, “On Printing Posting-bills”, in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, volume XI (New Series), number 626, London: Charles Knight & Co., OCLC 11554283, page 30, column 2:

        The cutting [of letter blocks] is effected by chisels and gouges of the usual kinds, and is the work of a class of artizans called 'Wood letter Cutters,' or 'Wood-type Cutters.'

   2. A bookbinder's tool with a curved face, used for blind tooling or gilding.
   3. An incising tool that cuts blanks or forms for envelopes, gloves, etc., from leather, paper, or other materials.
      • [1875, Edward H[enry] Knight, “Gouge”, in Knight’s American Mechanical Dictionary: […], volume II (Ena–Pan), New York, N.Y.: J. B. Ford and Company, OCLC 29084852, page 997, column 1:

        Gouge. […] A shaped incising-tool used for cutting out forms or blanks for gloves, envelopes, or other objects cut to a shape from fabric, leather, or paper.]

2. A cut or groove, as left by a gouge or something sharp.

   The nail left a deep gouge in the tire.

3. (originally US, colloquial) An act of gouging.
4. (slang) A cheat, a fraud; an imposition.

   Synonym: swindle

5. (slang) An impostor.
6. (mining) Soft material lying between the wall of a vein and the solid vein of ore.
   • 1869, Rossiter W[orthington] Raymond, “Giant Powder and Common Powder”, in The Mines of the West: A Report to the Secretary of the Treasury, New York, N.Y.: J. B. Ford and Company […], OCLC 27473929, page 34:

     At some of the mines on the great Mother Lode, where hundreds of tons are not unfrequently thrown down at a blast, and where a wide, soft "gouge" along one wall enables the minder to keep two or three sides of the rock free, and give the powder the greatest opportunity to "lift" without waste of power, the cost of drilling and blasting per ton is so low that a reduction of one-third, even if it could be made, would not greatly affect the general count; […]

   • 1930, Edward Wilber Berry, “Systematic Descriptions”, in Revision of the Lower Eocene Wilcox Flora of the Southeastern States: With Descriptions of New Species, Chiefly from Tennessee and Kentucky ([United States] Geological Survey Professional Paper; 156), Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, OCLC 987033971, page 83, column 1:

     The geologic relations seen at the surface continue underground, but in addition 5 to 10 feet of gouge, dipping 68°E, is found to separate the serpentine from the ore zone. The gouge is not sufficiently resistant to erosion to crop out. […] A "bull" quartz vein occurs in places along the contact of the gouge and the ore zone. It does not constitute ore.

• fault gouge
• gouge bit

gouge (third-person singular simple present gouges, present participle gouging, simple past and past participle gouged)

1. (transitive) To make a groove, hole, or mark in by scooping with or as if with a gouge.

   Synonyms: engrave, grave, incise

   Japanese and Chinese printers used to gouge characters in wood.

2. (transitive) To cheat or impose upon; in particular, to charge an unfairly or unreasonably high price.

   Synonyms: defraud, swindle

   The company has no competition, so it tends to gouge its customers.

3. (transitive, intransitive) To dig or scoop (something) out with or as if with a gouge; in particular, to use a thumb to push or try to push the eye (of a person) out of its socket.
   • 1930 November, Robert E[rvin] Howard, “Champ of the Forecastle”, in Jack O’Sullivan, editor, Fight Stories, volume 3, number 6, New York, N.Y.: Fight Stories, Inc., OCLC 12153101; republished in Paul Herman, editor, Waterfront Fists and Others, Holicong, Pa.: Wildside Press, 2003, →ISBN, page 155:

     He tried to clinch and gouge, but another right hook to the jaw sent him down and out.

4. (intransitive) To use a gouge.

• gouger
• gouging (noun)
• price gouging
• regouge

• chisel – gouge on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• gouge (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “gouge” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.

Old French gouge, from Latin gulbia (Late Latin gubia), of Gaulish or Basque origins.

• IPA^(key): /ɡuʒ/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uʒ

gouge f (plural gouges)

1. gouge (groove)
2. gouge (tool)
3. (obsolete) female servant
4. (archaic) prostitute
   • 1857, Charles Baudelaire, Bribes - Damnation,

     On peut les comparer encore à cette auberge, / Espoir des affamés, où cognent sur le tard, / Blessés, brisés, jurant, priant qu’on les héberge, / L’écolier, le prélat, la gouge et le soudard.

     They can also be compared to this inn, / Hope to the starved, where in the night knock, / Injured, broken, cursing, begging to be lodged, / The schoolboy, the prelate, the prostitute and the soldier.

gouge

1. first-person singular present indicative of gouger
2. third-person singular present indicative of gouger
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of gouger
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of gouger
5. second-person singular imperative of gouger

• “gouge” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

From Late Latin gubia, from Latin gulbia.

gouge f (oblique plural gouges, nominative singular gouge, nominative plural gouges)

1. gouge (tool)
2. (chiefly derogatory) woman

• English: gouge
• French: gouge

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (gouge, supplement)