Cuts or scoops out material with force or with a chisel-like tool; takes unfair financial advantage of someone.
From a tool-cutting word, possibly from Vulgar Latin 'gulbia,' but connections are uncertain. Used as both a concrete verb (to scoop with a tool) and metaphorically (to exploit) since medieval times.
The verb 'gouge' appears in Shakespeare with the physical meaning—characters literally gouging out each other's eyes—but by the 1800s it meant financial violence, showing how the language mirrors human cruelty at every level.
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