Scar

This meaning is about the psychological damage left by a painful experience — trauma, loss, abuse, or any event that changes a person permanently. Imagine a child who grew up watching their parents fight constantly — even as an adult, that experience scars them and makes it hard to trust relationships. This is describing invisible damage that shapes how someone thinks or feels long after the event is over. You might say "the divorce left emotional scars on the children" to describe lasting psychological effects, or someone could say "he was scarred by what he saw during the war" to mean the experience damaged him permanently. Or think about someone who was bullied at school and still carries the scars of that experience twenty years later — they flinch at confrontation even when there's no real threat. The word borrows from the physical meaning to describe wounds you can't see.

This meaning is about visible damage left on objects, buildings, or land — not on people. Imagine driving through an area where a wildfire burned through last summer — the hillside is still black and bare, scarred by the flames. This is describing a mark or wound on something non-human. You might read "the table was scarred with cigarette burns" to describe an old piece of furniture with visible damage, or someone could say "the landscape is scarred by decades of mining" to describe how industry has permanently changed the land. Or think about a city wall scarred by bullet holes from a war that ended fifty years ago — the wall still tells the story. The word gives objects and places the same sense of lasting damage that a wound gives a person.