A gash is a deep, long cut or wound, usually with rough or jagged edges. If you trip and fall hard on a sharp rock, you might get a gash on your knee that bleeds more heavily than a simple scrape. Gashes are more serious than small cuts because they're deeper and wider, often requiring stitches or medical attention.

The word suggests violence or force: you wouldn't get a gash from a paper cut, but you might get one from broken glass or a sharp piece of metal. When describing damage to objects, gash conveys the same sense of a deep, forceful tear. A boat might have a gash in its hull from hitting a rock, or a tree trunk might show a gash where someone took a heavy axe swing.

You can also use gash as a verb: “The ice skater gashed her arm when she fell on the rink.” The word carries an immediate sense of something serious happening, which is why it appears often in adventure stories and descriptions of accidents and injuries.