From Middle English kerven, from Old English ceorfan, from Proto-West Germanic *kerban, from Proto-Germanic *kerbaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ-.

• (America) IPA: /kɑɹv/
• (RP) IPA: /kɑːv/

carve (carves, present participle carving; simple past and past participle carved)

1. (archaic) To cut.
   • 1834 September (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “Sir Galahad”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza I, page 174 ↗:

     My good blade carves the casques of men, / My tough lance thrusteth sure, / My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure.

2. To cut meat in order to serve it.

   You carve the roast and I’ll serve the vegetables.

3. To shape to sculptural effect; to produce (a work) by cutting, or to cut (a material) into a finished work, especially with cuts that are curved rather than only straight slices.

   to carve a name into a tree

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter I, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC ↗:

     The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise.

4. (snowboarding) To perform a series of turns without pivoting, so that the tip and tail of the snowboard take the same path.
5. (figuratively) To take or make, as by cutting; to provide.
   • 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:

     […] who could easily have carved themselves their own food.

6. To lay out; to contrive; to design; to plan.
   • 1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene iii]:

     Lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet.

• kerf

• German: schneiden
• Italian: tagliare
• Portuguese: cortar, esculpir
• Russian: ре́зать
• Spanish: cortar

• German: tranchieren, zerlegen
• Italian: trinciare, scalcare
• Portuguese: trinchar
• Russian: разреза́ть
• Spanish: trinchar

• German: einkerben, kerben, schnitzen (wood)
• Italian: intagliare, scolpire
• Portuguese: esculpir, talhar
• Russian: выреза́ть
• Spanish: tallar, esculpir

carve (plural carves)

1. (obsolete) A carucate.
   • 1862, Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland:

     ... half a carve of arable land in Ballyncore, one carve of arable land in Pales, a quarter of arable land in Clonnemeagh, half a carve of arable land in Ballyfaden, half a carve of arable land in Ballymadran, ...

   • 1868, John Harland (editor), Wapentake of West Derby, in Remains, Historical and Literary, Connected with the Palatine Counties of Lancaster and Chester, (translating a Latin text c. 1320-46), page 31

     Whereof John de Ditton holds a moiety of the village for half a carve of land.

2. The act of carving

   give that turkey a careful carve