Hold a curved blade against a piece of wood, push, and turn. A piece of the wood comes away and a rounded hollow is left behind. That one movement is the whole word. The tool with the curved edge is a gouge, the movement is to gouge, and the hollow left behind is a gouge as well - English lets one word be the tool, the act and the mark. The thing to keep hold of is that something is always taken away. That is why a gouge is a hollow you can put a fingertip into and not a thin line on the surface, and it is also why the word works on money.
From the word’s history
From Middle English gouge, from Old French gouge, from Late Latin gubia, a chisel or piercer, borrowed from Gaulish and going back to a Celtic word for a beak or bill. The old meaning is the picture: a curved beak driven into something and lifting a piece away.
經中古英文 gouge、古法文 gouge，上溯到晚期拉丁文的 gubia（鑿子、穿刺的工具），再往前是高盧語，源頭是凱爾特語裡表示「鳥喙」的字。最早的意思就是這個畫面：一張彎彎的喙啄進去，把一塊料挑起來。
Wiktionary entries for gouge (noun and verb), Old French gouge < Late Latin gubia < Gaulish *gulbiā < Proto-Celtic *gulbā beak, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:617482263:30491 (packet evidence)
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。