"to take or cull out" a passage in a written or printed work, "select, cite, extract," early 15c. (implied in excerpte), from Latin excerptus, past participle of excerpere "pluck out, pick out, extract," figuratively "choose, select, gather," also "to leave out, omit," from ex "out" (see ex-) + carpere "pluck, gather," from PIE root *kerp- "to gather, pluck, harvest." Related: Excerpted; excerpting.

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to gather, pluck, harvest."

It forms all or part of: carpe diem; carpel; carpet; carpo- (1) "fruit;" excerpt; harvest; scarce; scarcity.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit krpana- "sword," krpani "shears;" Greek karpos "fruit," karpizomai "make harvest of;" Latin carpere "to cut, divide, pluck;" Lithuanian kerpu, kirpti "to cut;" Middle Irish cerbaim "cut;" Old English hærfest "autumn."

mid-14c., scarsnes, "stinginess" (a sense now obsolete); see scarce + -ness. By late 14c. as "insufficiency, want, dearth." By 1670s as "uncommonness, rarity."

"insufficiency, want, dearth," c. 1300, scarsete, from a shortening of Anglo-French and Old North French escarcete (Old French escharsete), from eschars "scanty, scarce" (see scarce).