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concussion

noun
kuhn-KUSH-uhn/kənˈkʌʃən/

Pluralconcussions

3 meanings of concussion

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  1. 1
    nounUScountable or uncountable
    An injury to the body (most often the brain) caused by a violent blow and followed by a loss of normal function.

    The boxer left the ring with a concussion and could not remember the final round.

    Emergency staff monitored the cyclist for signs of concussion after the collision.

    Note

    Here the grammar divides by region. In the US and Canada the injury is countable: a player has a concussion, or suffers several concussions over a career. Commonwealth usage treats it as uncountable, a condition rather than a single event, so it appears without the article: he was taken to hospital with concussion. Choose the pattern that matches your readers.

  2. 2
    nounobsoletecountable or uncountable
    A violent collision between bodies, or the forceful shock produced by an impact.

    The concussion of the two ships' hulls echoed across the harbor.

    It is believed that great ringing of bells, in populous cities, hath dissipated pestilent air; which may be from the concussion of the air.
    1627, Francis [Bacon], Sylua Syluarum
    Note

    The oldest physical sense, a noun from Latin concussiō, equivalent to concuss plus -ion. Early natural philosophers used it for shocks passing through air and vapor. Francis Bacon in 1627 suggests that bells may clear pestilent air through the concussion of the air. George Cheyne in 1705 has water vapor condensed by striking mountainsides. It is obsolete now, and modern readers know the word as the head injury.

  3. 3
    nounobsoleteuncountable
    The unlawful use of threats of violence to compel another person to hand over something of value.

    The magistrate found the bailiff guilty of concussion for extorting coin from the villagers under threat of arrest.

    Then Concussion, Rapine, Pillories, / Their Catalogue of Accusations fill.
    1595, Samuel Daniel, The First Fowre Bookes of the Ciuile Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and Yorke
    Note

    A legal term for what we would now call extortion by threat, and long out of use. Samuel Daniel in 1595 places it in a catalog of accusations beside rapine, which shows the company it kept: offenses of force and seizure. In old legal writing, do not mistake it for the head injury. Here the word names a crime, not a blow.

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Origin

From Latin concussiō, equivalent to 'concuss' combined with the suffix '-ion'.