To cut off or sever; an archaic or technical term meaning to remove by cutting.
From Latin 'abscindere' (ab- 'off' + scindere 'to cut'), a classical term that survives in technical botanical and surgical vocabulary but is rarely used in modern English.
Latin kept separate verbs for different types of cutting—'scindere' for tearing, 'caedere' for striking, 'secare' for sawing—but English collapsed them all into one word 'cut,' losing precision.
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