Verb

(archaic) To cut.

* Tennyson

My good blade carved the casques of men.

To cut meat in order to serve it.

You carve the roast and I'll serve the vegetables.

To shape to sculptural effect; to produce (a work) by cutting, or to cut (a material) into a finished work.

to carve a name into a tree

* {{quote-book, year=1920, year_published=2008 , edition=HTML, author=Edgar Rice Burroughs

, title=Thuvia, Maiden of Mars citation , publisher=The Gutenberg Project , passage=The facades of the buildings fronting upon the avenue within the wall were richly carven

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise.}}

(snowboarding) To perform a series of turns without pivoting, so that the tip and tail of the snowboard take the same path.

(figuratively) To take or make, as by cutting; to provide.

* South

who could easily have carved themselves their own food.

* {{quote-news, year=2010

, date=December 29 , author=Sam Sheringham , title=Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The Reds carved the first opening of the second period as Glen Johnson's pull-back found David Ngog but the Frenchman hooked wide from six yards. }}

To lay out; to contrive; to design; to plan.

* Shakespeare

Lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet.

Verb

(en-verb)

To be symbolic of; to represent.

* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=

, title=Internal Combustion , chapter=2 citation , passage=The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}

To use symbols; to represent ideas symbolically.

(obsolete) To resemble each other in qualities or properties; to correspond; to harmonize.

* Francis Bacon

The pleasing of colour symbolizeth' with the pleasing of any single tone to the ear; but the pleasing of order doth ' symbolize with harmony.

* Howell

They both symbolize in this, that they love to look upon themselves through multiplying glasses.

(obsolete) To hold the same faith; to agree.

* G. S. Faber

The believers in pretended miracles have always previously symbolized with the performers of them.