2596: crab, crib, & carve Jan 23, 2022

The word 'crab' is ultimately traced back to the Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ- meaning 'to twist; to scratch; to claw', but so are 'carve', 'crib', and 'crèche'. Much of this has to do with leading to varied understanding, such as 'crab' and 'crayfish’ from Proto-Germanic *krabbô (to crawl) as opposed to 'crib' from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ (wickerwork, basket) from the sense of twisting & weaving material. This led to a sense of 'clump; group' and then 'crèche' was born. 'Carve' is from the sense of this word as scratching, and is related to the Old Prussian gīrbin (number) from the idea of tallying.

2284: cut, shear, and carve Mar 18, 2021

Now replaced by the word 'cut', the words 'shear' and 'carve' used to have more general meanings. 'Carve' now is restricted to cutting a material into a certain shape, engraving, or cutting meat. In the case of 'shear', this actually comes from the same Indo European root as 'cut', that being *ker-, leading to other words including 'carrion', 'curt', 'skirmish', 'skirt', 'scrap', 'shard', 'scar' and many more. That said, now 'shear' also has a fairly specific, restricted use especially relating to hair and other cuttings of top-layers of things.