DictionaryAI

injury

IN-jur-ee/ˈɪn.d͡ʒɚ.i/UKIN-juh-ree/ˈɪn.d͡ʒə.ɹi/

Pluralinjuries

4 meanings of injury

Practice

  1. 1
    to the bodynouncountable or uncountable
    Damage to the body of a person, animal, or other living thing.

    The athlete recovered slowly from a knee injury.

    Repeated impacts can cause lasting injury to the joints.

    UsageYou suffer, sustain or get an injury. Name the body part in front or with to: a knee injury, injury to the joints.

    Similardamage, harm, wound, trauma

  2. 2
    harm (not bodily)nouncountable or uncountable
    Harm of a kind other than bodily, done to a person's feelings or mind, or to their reputation, rights, property, or interests.

    The libel caused lasting injury to his professional reputation.

    They sued for the injury done to their property rights by the encroachment.

    UsageUsually injury to + what is harmed: injury to his reputation, injury to their rights.

  3. 3
    unfair treatmentnounarchaiccountable or uncountable
    Unfair or wrongful treatment of a person; an act of injustice.
    Note

    In this older usage the wrong itself is the point, not its effect: to suffer injury was to be treated unjustly. It is the plainest survival of Latin iniūria. Readers meeting it in older prose should hear "injustice" rather than "wound."

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    verbobsoletetransitive
    To do wrong to someone; to injure or harm a person.
    The best of us doth not so much feare to wrong him, as he doth to injurie his neighbour, his kinsman, or his master.
    II.12
    Note

    The noun once doubled as a transitive verb, spelled injurie and inflected injuried and injurying. Its force leaned toward moral wrong rather than bodily harm: it stands beside "to wrong him" as a near-equivalent, closer to the violation of rights than to a wound.

Practice

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Origin

This word comes from Middle English injurie, borrowed from Anglo-Norman injurie, which goes back to Latin iniūria ("injustice, wrong, offense"). The Latin word was built from in- ("not") and iūs, iūris ("right, law"), and injury is a doublet of injuria.

Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts