Literary notes about gouge (AI summary)
The word "gouge" has been employed in literature to evoke images of forceful extraction or carving out, whether it be of natural formations or in crafted contexts. In works such as Jules Verne's narrative, the term describes how animals instinctively gouge holes in the ice for survival [1], while Lucretius uses it metaphorically to depict rivers eroding their banks [2]. Similarly, geological processes are characterized by natural forces gouging out valleys from rock [3], reinforcing the notion of relentless removal. Additionally, the term surfaces as a specific woodworking tool among others essential for shaping material [4]. In stark contrast, Poe’s grim use of the word underscores violent intent [5], and Sinclair Lewis employs it to render the landscape scarred and wounded [6].
- These animals know by instinct how to gouge holes in the ice fields and keep them continually open; they go to these holes to breathe.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - A part, moreover, of her sod and soil Is summoned to inundation by the rains; And rivers graze and gouge the banks away.
— from On the Nature of Things by Titus Lucretius Carus - The ice froze onto all loose rock material and carried it forward, using it as abrasive to gouge out the rock, the valley bottoms, and sides.
— from Glacier National Park [Montana] by United States. Department of the Interior - Edge tools are the firmer chisel, the mortise chisel, the socket chisel, the gouge, the hatchet, the adze, the drawing knife.
— from Woodworking Tools 1600-1900 by Peter C. Welsh - So I’s to gouge out all their eyes, eh?
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - Beyond them was a hill with a gouge of yellow clay like a vast wound.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
