different between gash vs deface

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Etymology 1

Alteration of older garsh, from Middle English garsen, from Old French garser, jarsier (Modern French gercer), from Vulgar Latin *charax?re, from Ancient Greek ???????? (kharakt?r, “engraver”).

Alternative forms

• garsh (dated)

Noun

gash (countable and uncountable, plural gashes)

1. A deep cut.
   • 2006, New York Times, “Bush Mourns 9/11 at Ground Zero as N.Y. Remembers”, [1]:

     Vowing that he was “never going to forget the lessons of that day,” President Bush paid tribute last night to the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, laying wreaths at ground zero, attending a prayer service at St. Paul’s Chapel and making a surprise stop at a firehouse and a memorial museum overlooking the vast gash in the ground where the twin towers once stood.

2. (slang, vulgar) A vulva.
   • 1959, William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch, 50th anniversary edition (2009), p. 126:

     “Oh Gertie it’s true. It’s all true. They’ve got a horrid gash instead of a thrilling thing.”

3. (slang, offensive) A woman
   • 1934, James T. Farrell, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, Ch. 19:

     "Will you bastards quit singing the blues? You're young, and there's plenty of gash in the world, and the supply of moon goes on forever," Simonsky said.

4. (slang, British Royal Navy) Rubbish, spare kit
5. (slang) Rubbish on board an aircraft
6. (slang) Unused film or sound during film editing
7. (slang) Poor quality beer, usually watered down.

Translations

Adjective

gash (comparative more gash, superlative most gash)

1. (slang) Of poor quality; makeshift; improvised; temporary; substituted.

Verb

gash (third-person singular simple present gashes, present participle gashing, simple past and past participle gashed)

1. To make a deep, long cut; to slash.

Translations

Etymology 2

From ghastful, by association with gash.

Adjective

gash (comparative more gash, superlative most gash)

1. (Britain, Scotland, dialect) ghastly; hideous

Related terms

• gashful
• gashly

Anagrams

• HAGS, hags, shag

English

Etymology

From Middle English defacen, from Old French defacier, desfacier (“to mutilate, destroy, disfigure”), from des- (“away from”) (see dis-) + Vulgar Latin *facia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d??fe?s/, /di??fe?s/
• Rhymes: -e?s

Verb

deface (third-person singular simple present defaces, present participle defacing, simple past and past participle defaced)

1. To damage or vandalize something, especially a surface, in a visible or conspicuous manner.
   • 1869: George Eliot, The Legend of Jubal

     That wondrous frame where melody began / Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.

2. To void or devalue; to nullify or degrade the face value of.

   He defaced the I.O.U. notes by scrawling "void" over them.

   • 1776: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

     One-and-twenty worn and defaced shillings, however, were considered as equivalent to a guinea, which perhaps, indeed, was worn and defaced too, but seldom so much so.

3. (heraldry, flags) To alter a coat of arms or a flag by adding an element to it.

   You get the Finnish state flag by defacing the national flag with the state coat of arms placed in the middle of the cross.

Synonyms

• (damage in a conspicuous way): disfigure, mar, obliterate, scar, vandalize
• (degrade the face value): cancel, devalue, nullify, void

Derived terms

• defacement

Translations

See also

• efface