The Collaborative International Dictionary
Scarification \Scar`i*fi*ca"tion\, n. [L. scarificatio: cf. F. scarification.] The act of scarifying.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
c.1400, "act of covering with scratches or slight cuts," from Old French scarification (14c.), from Late Latin scarificationem (nominative scarificatio), noun of action from past participle stem of scarificare, from Latin scarifare "scratch open," from Greek skariphasthai "to scratch an outline, sketch," from skariphos "pencil, stylus," from PIE root *skribh- "to cut, separate, sift" (see script (n.)).
Wiktionary
n. 1 The act of scarifying - of raking the ground harshly to remove weeds, etc. 2 A medieval form of penance in which the skin was damaged with a knife or hot iron.
Wikipedia
Scarification in botany involves weakening, opening, or otherwise altering the coat of a seed to encourage germination. Scarification is often done mechanically, thermally, and chemically. The seeds of many plant species are often impervious to water and gases, thus preventing or delaying germination. Any process designed to make the testa (seed coat) more permeable to water and gases (and thus more likely to germinate) is known as scarification.
Scarification, regardless of type, works by speeding up the natural processes which normally make seed coats permeable to water and air.
Usage examples of "scarification".
Tattoos on his shoulders and arms and a whorl of little knots of flesh on his back like braille under her fingertips: scarification done with cactus needles, the man tells her.
His power to observe remained, however, detached completely from his feelingsthe release would come later, the historian well knew: the shaking limbs, the nightmares, the slow scarification of his faith.
Her lithe muscular body bore the magical marks of ritual scarification, patterning her exquisite golden skin into complex silver and blue whorls and glyphs.
But unlike many such rites, which often involve abandonment or even scarification some physical evidence of a test or ordeal endured mine was not a wounding ritual.
The woman beneath was gray yet gleaming, her lips bloody, her legs parted so that the elaborate scarification of her pubis was displayed.
His ears were deformed masses of protruding scar tissue that would stand out even in Japan, where such scarification is not uncommon among judoka and kendoka.
From the shoulder scarification marks, he recognized Maku, one of the porters.
Only the clan scarifications on both heels remained visible, to mark him and his footprints as of the Kwanyi.
There were many of them, and some showed the heel scarifications of Ichiribu clans.
All those people now with piercings and tattoos and brandings and scarification .
Facial tattoos and scarifications marked him as an officer, but he lacked the deformations and implants peculiar to commanders.
In primal societies, there are teeth knocked out, there are scarifications, there are circumcisions, there are all kinds of things done.
Only this: that what with the heat of the sun above and the floor beneath her, and the scarification of her flesh in every part by the flies and gadflies, that flesh, which in the night had dispelled the gloom by its whiteness, was now become red as madder, and so besprent with clots of blood, that whoso had seen her would have deemed her the most hideous object in the world.
His glory days as a warrior were evidenced by the tattoos and scarifications that adorned his face and torso, though the most recent of them revealed for all to see that he had once held a more lofty rank.
He asked Tashi to forgive his initial stupid response to the scarification.