Carve
Old English ceorfan ‘cut, carve’, of West Germanic origin; related to Dutch kerven .
wiktionary
From Middle English kerven, from Old English ceorfan, from Proto-West Germanic *kerban, from Proto-Germanic *kerbaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gerbʰ-(“to scratch”). Cognate with West Frisian kerve, Dutch kerven, Low German karven, German kerben(“to notch”); also Old Prussian gīrbin(“number”), Old Church Slavonic жрѣбии(žrěbii, “lot, tallymark”), Ancient Greek γράφειν(gráphein, “to scratch, etch”).
etymonline
carve (v.)
Middle English kerven (the initial -k- is from influence of Scandinavian forms), from Old English ceorfan (class III strong verb; past tense cearf, past participle corfen) "to cut," also "cut down, slay; cut out," from West Germanic *kerbanan (source also of Old Frisian kerva, Middle Dutch and Dutch kerven, German kerben "to cut, notch"), from PIE root *gerbh- "to scratch," making carve the English cognate of Greek graphein "to write," originally "to scratch" on clay tablets with a stylus.
Once extensively used and the general verb for "to cut;" most senses now have passed to cut (v.) and since 16c.
carve has been restricted to specialized senses such as "cut (solid material) into the representation of an object or a design" (late Old English); "cut (meat, etc.) into pieces or slices" (early 13c.); "produce by cutting" (mid-13c.); "decorate by carving" (late 14c.). Related: Carved; carving. The original strong conjugation has been abandoned, but archaic past-participle adjective carven lingers poetically.
