a. †A crack, crevice (obsolete); a cut, notch, or scratch; a line drawn with a sharp instrument.

b. Nautical and Mechanics (a) The groove of a block or dead-eye round which the rope passes; (b) a notch or groove made in a piece of timber or metal to allow another piece to be neatly fitted into it.

c. local. ‘A vertical indentation in a hill; a gangway down a cliff; a cutting through a ridge of hills’ ( Eng. Dial. Dict.); spec. in East Anglia, a narrow, steep path or street leading to the sea. Used esp. in place-names. Cf. Old Norse skor in sense ‘a rift in a rock or precipice’. The place-names Syrithescore and Scourton are recorded from the 13th century and c1550 respectively (A. H. Smith, Place-Names of East Riding of Yorkshire (1937) 328; E. Ekwall, Place-Names of Lancashire (1922) 164).

a. A line drawn; a stroke, mark; a line drawn as a boundary.The sense, though in our examples not found in literal use earlier than the 16th cent., seems to be old, as the figurative phrases in b apparently belong to it.

b. Phrases. †out of score, beyond the mark, excessively, unreasonably (frequent in R. Brunne); †over score, over the mark, aside.

†c. ? A track, trace of footsteps. Obsolete.

a. spec. The ‘scratch’ or line at which a marksman stands when shooting at a target, or on which the competitors stand before beginning a race.

b. Phrases. to go off (set off, start) at score, of a horse, to make a sudden dash at full speed; figurative of a person, to break out suddenly into impetuous speech or action. So to go off full score, to keep on at a score.

c. Curling. = hog score n.

a. Music. A written or printed piece of concerted music, in which all the vocal and instrumental parts are noted on a series of staves one under the other.Commonly stated to be so called from the practice (not now always followed) of connecting the related staves by ‘scores’ or lines continuing the bars.

b. A musical composition with its distribution of parts.

c. spec. (A piece of) music composed for a film; the musical part of the sound-track of a film; formerly, the background music and effects of a silent film.

a. A notch cut in a stick or tally, used to mark numbers in keeping accounts; also the tally itself.

b. Games. A mark made for the purpose of recording a point or the like. Cf. chalk n. 5.

a. A record or account (of items of uniform amount to be charged or credited) kept by means of tallies, or (in later use) by means of marks made on a board (with chalk), on a slate, or the like. Now chiefly, the row of chalk marks on a door, or of strokes on a slate, which in rural alehouses used to serve to record the quantity of liquor consumed on credit by a regular frequenter. Hence occasionally transferred, a customer's account for goods obtained on credit.

†b. in, upon, on (the) score: in debt. to run into scores or in score, to run or go on or upon (the) score: to incur debts. upon the score of: indebted to. Also on score, upon the score: on credit. Obsolete.

c. In colloquial phrases, as to go over the score (chiefly Scottish): to act (esp. drink) immoderately; to have a few over the score (see few adj., pron., and n. Phrases 2c): to drink more at one time than one should.

a. The sum recorded to a customer's debit in a ‘score’ (sense 10); the amount of an innkeeper's bill or reckoning. Also, †a debt due to a tradesman for goods obtained on credit (obsolete).

b. figurative, esp. in certain phrases. to clear, pay, quit a score or scores: to requite an obligation; sometimes, to revenge an injury, to ‘be even with’ some one. †to cut the score, to cut scores: to forgive a debt. Also to pay off, rub out, etc., old scores.

a. Games. The record or register of points made by both sides during the progress of a game or match; also the number of points made by a side or individual. to get the score: to obtain the highest number of runs (in a cricket-match).

b. to make a score off one's own bat: see bat n.² 3c.

c. transferred. Psychology. A numerical record of the marks allotted to individuals in the measurement of abilities, capacity to learn, or in the assessment of personality.

d. figurative. The essential point or crux of a matter; the state of affairs, the (present) situation; how matters stand; the full facts (about, on, etc. someone or something); frequently in phrases, as to know the score; to ask, realize, etc., what the score is; what's the score; etc. colloquial.

b. figurative. A successful ‘hit’ in debate or argument.

c. The money or goods obtained by means of a successful crime. Criminals' slang.

d. The action or process of obtaining a supply of narcotic drugs; a supplier of narcotic drugs. Cf. score v. 16d slang (originally U.S.).

e. A prostitute's client (cf. score v. 16f); also in homosexual use. slang.

a. A group or set of twenty. Primarily a noun, const. of (in Old English genitive plural), but owing to ellipsis and loss of inflections often serving (when preceded by a, or in uninflected plural by a numeral) as a numeral adjective. (Cf. dozen n., hundred n. and adj., thousand n. and adj., etc.)The combinations threescore adj. and fourscore adj. are common as mere archaistic synonyms for sixty and eighty; the similar combinations with other numerals are rarely used except when there is intentional division into groups of 20.

b. with ellipsis of years (referring to age). Now rare except in threescore adj. and fourscore adj.

a. Twenty dollars; a twenty-dollar bill. U.S.

b. Twenty pounds sterling (esp. in banknotes).

a. transitive. To cut superficially; to make scores or cuts in; to mark with incisions, notches, or abrasions of the skin. Also, †to score away, to remove by cutting.

b. spec. in Cookery. To make long parallel cuts upon (meat, etc.).

c. To mark by cuts of a whip. Also transferred and absol.

†d. Scottish. to score aboon the breath: to gash the forehead of (a suspected witch) with a knife or a rusty nail, in order to render her incapable of mischief. Obsolete.

e. Geology. To mark with scratches or furrows; said esp. with reference to glacial action.

a. To mark with a line or lines.

b. absol. To make marks.

†c. To mark out (a path, a boundary, etc.).

†d. to score out: to sketch in outline, adumbrate. Obsolete.

b. To compose or arrange for orchestral performance.

c. To write the score for (a film). Cf. score n. 6c.

a. To record (debts) by means of notches on a tally; hence to write down as a debt. Also with up.

†b. to score (something) on a person or thing: to lay to the charge of, to impute to. Obsolete.

a. intransitive. To run up a score; to obtain drink, goods, etc. on credit. Obsolete.

b. transitive. To add (an item) to one's score; to incur (a debt). In quot. 1681 figurative.

a. transitive. To enter as a debtor. Also with up.

†b. to score up: to placard as an offender.

a. To record the number of (anything) by notches or marks; to keep an account of; to count and set down the number of (e.g. sheep). Also with up.

b. Biology and Medicine. To examine (experimentally treated cells, bacterial colonies, or the like), making a record of the number showing some character.

a. In a game or contest: To set down in the score: often with obj. compl. Chiefly in passive.

b. absol. or intransitive. To record the points in a game or contest, to act as scorer.

a. transitive. Of a player or competitor: To add (so many points) to one's score. Also said of an incident in the game: To count for (so many points) in a player's score. Phr. to score a miss: see to score a miss at miss n.¹ 7c.

b. intransitive. To make points in a game or contest: said of a player or competitor; also, of a card or an incident in the game.

c. To count or be reckoned in a score.

d. transitive. Baseball. To cause (a team-mate) to score.

e. Psychology. To obtain (results in a test designed to measure abilities, capacities, or personality traits); to record results in (a test). Also intransitive. Cf. score n. 14c.

a. transitive. To gain, win (a success, etc.). to score a point (or points) off (a person) = to score off at sense 16b (see sense 16b).