To shape by removing — cutting the true form out of the whole; in this house, the separation of spine from identity.
Old English ceorfan (to cut, to cut down), from Proto-Germanic *kerban, from a Proto-Indo-European root *gerbh- (to scratch) that also, by a separate branch, gives Greek graphein (to write, originally to scratch).
To shape a thing by removing from it — cutting a true form out of a larger whole, as this house does when it separates a spine from an identity that was never the spine's to keep.