score

\ \ [11] The etymological notion underlying score is of ‘cutting’ – for it is related to English shear. It was borrowed from Old Norse skor, which went back to the same prehistoric Germanic base – *skur-, *sker- ‘cut’ – that produced shear (not to mention share, shore, and short). It had a range of meanings, from ‘notch’ to ‘record kept by cutting notches’, but it was specifically the ‘number twenty’ (presumably originally ‘twenty recorded by cutting notches’) that English at first took over. The other senses followed, perhaps as a result of reborrowing, in the 14th century, but the main modern meaning, ‘number of points made in a game’ (originally as recorded by cutting notches), is a purely English development of the 18th century. Roughly contemporary is ‘written music’, which is said to come from the linking together of related staves with a single common bar line or ‘score’ (in the sense ‘mark’). The verb score ‘mark with lines’ was borrowed in the 14th century from Old Norse skora.

\ \ Cf.⇒ SHARE, SHEAR, SHIRT, SHORT, SKIRT