To cut or remove excess material; neat and orderly in appearance.
From Old English 'trymman' meaning to strengthen or arrange. The sense of cutting developed from the idea of making something orderly and proper by removing excess.
The word 'trim' beautifully captures the human aesthetic principle that beauty often comes from subtraction rather than addition - whether trimming hedges, editing writing, or styling hair. This concept of 'less is more' appears across cultures and art forms.
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