Scoring is a process in which one cuts a groove into rigid material. This groove is used to either break the material along the slit, for decoration, or act as a guideline for other processes such as painting.

Etymology

From

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

''score'', ''skore'', ''schore'', from Old English ''scoru'' (“notch; tally; score”), from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''skor'', from

Proto-Germanic Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...

''*skurō'' (“incision; tear; rift”), which is related to ''*skeraną'' (“to cut”), ultimately from

Proto-Indo-European Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...

''*(s)ker-'' (“cut”). Cognate with Icelandic ''skora'',

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used b ...

''skåra'',

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

''skår''. Related to ''shear''.

Advantages and disadvantages

200px, 1. Groove
2. Jagged edge from breakage It can also be used to allow materials to expand and contract under varying thermal conditions. Scoring is used in place of cutting through the material all the way because you can obtain relatively the same results with less time and labor. However, when breaking along the score line the material may deviate from the set guideline, the back side of the break line often has a jagged edge to it from the shear fracture, and scoring offers very little use to metallic materials due to their

malleability Ductility is a mechanical property commonly described as a material's amenability to drawing (e.g. into wire). In materials science, ductility is defined by the degree to which a material can sustain plastic deformation under tensile stres ...

.Development and Wear Analysis of Polymer-Polyeryl Ether Ketone (PEK) Spur Gear
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Industries that use scoring

Due to their hardness,

tile Tiles are usually thin, square or rectangular coverings manufactured from hard-wearing material such as ceramic, Rock (geology), stone, metal, baked clay, or even glass. They are generally fixed in place in an array to cover roofs, floors, wa ...

stone In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...

glass Glass is a non-Crystallinity, crystalline, often transparency and translucency, transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most ...

, and

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...

respond well to scoring, and so the practice finds use in

tile setting Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface. ...

stoneworking Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, mo ...

glassblowing Glassblowing is a glassforming technique that involves inflating molten glass into a bubble (or parison) with the aid of a blowpipe (or blow tube). A person who blows glass is called a ''glassblower'', ''glassmith'', or ''gaffer''. A ''lampworker ...

, and ceramics work respectively. Scoring is most commonly used in concrete work for decoration by making the grooves appear to be grout lines from tile work. Confectioners often score

hard candy A hard candy (American English), or boiled sweet (British English), is a sugar candy prepared from one or more sugar-based syrups that is heated to a temperature of 160 °C (320 °F) to make candy. Among the many hard candy varietie ...

such as

butterscotch Butterscotch is a type of confectionery whose primary ingredients are brown sugar and butter, but other ingredients are part of some recipes, such as corn syrup, cream, vanilla, and salt. The earliest known recipes, in mid-19th century Yorkshir ...

when batching it in sheets, in part because it avoids damaging the underlying baking tray.

References

Industrial processes {{Industry-stub