means The act of shaping a three-dimensional form by carving, modeling, or otherwise working a material like stone, clay, or metal into a deliberate shape.

from From Latin 'sculpere,' to carve or cut, which gave us 'sculptura.' The root carries the sense of scratching and incising — the same impulse behind 'scalpel,' that other instrument for cutting away. So the word itself remembers that sculpting began not with adding but with removing, chip by chip.