injure/wound/hurt/harm/damage as verbs/adjectives/nouns
Agustin
from Spain writes:
I
would be very grateful if you could explain the difference between
injure, wound, hurt, harm, damage
and their associated adjectives: injured, wounded,
hurt, harmed and damaged. Their meanings are
so close that I have difficulty differentiating them.
Roger
Woodham replies:
You
are quite right, Agostin. These verbs and related nouns and adjectives
are quite close in meaning and use, but there are a number of distinguishing
characteristics.
hurt
(verb)
If
part of your body hurts, you feel pain there. If you hurtsomeone, you cause them to feel pain. Note that verbs that
refer to physical feelings (hurt, ache, etc) can often
be used in simple or progressive tenses with no difference in meaning:
Have
you been knocked over? Tell me where it hurts / it's hurting.
~ My arm hurts.
You're
hurting my arm. Ouch! Don't touch me. That hurts!
You
can also hurt someone's feelings, and cause them to feel
emotional pain:
I
think she's going to be hurt. I don't think she'll ever
fall in love again.
What
hurt me most was the betrayal. How could he behave like
that?
hurt
(noun/adjective)
Thehurt that she felt was deep and would only be softened
with the passing of time.
They
were suffering from shock but did not seem to be otherwise hurt.
injure(verb)
In
the sentence describing people suffering from shock above, hurt
could be replaced by injured. If you injure somebody,
you cause physical damage to part of their body usually the result
of an accident or through fighting:
A
number of bombs have exploded, seriously injuring scores
of people.
The
demonstrators injured a number of innocent people when
they started throwing stones.
injured
/ injury (nouns) / injured (adj)
The
injured were taken to hospital by air-ambulance.
Theirinjuries were thought to be serious.
He
was not seriously injured, though his coach took him off
at half-time as a precaution.
Two
minutes of injurytime were played at the end of
the fist half.
wound(verb)
If
you wound somebody, you inflict physical damage on part of
their body, especially a cut or a hole in their flesh caused by
a gun, a knife or some other weapon, often in battle.
There
was no escape. They were mortallywounded by the
enemy fire.
The
driver of the Red-Cross ambulance waswounded by
the shrapnel.
In
English, it is often a matter of knowing which adjectives collocate
with which nouns and which adverbs go with which verbs. In this
particular word family, the adverb-verb collocations are normally
as follows: badly hurt / seriously injured / mortally
wounded. You will also have noticed that with these verbs the
passive voice is often used.
wound(noun) / wounded (adj)
The
open wound really needed stitches and took a long time
to heal.
The
four wounded men were taken to the field hospital in the
back of the Jeep.
We
also have the expressions: to rub salt into the wound, i.e.
to make an unpleasant situation even worse and to lick one'swounds, i.e. to slowly recover after being defeated or made
to feel ashamed or unhappy:
I
didn't want to rub salt into the wound so decided not to
mention Bob's infidelity.
The
British team could only retire and lick their wounds after
such a comprehensive defeat on Spanish soil.
damage
(verb)
It
is things that are damaged, not people. Damage is
the physical harm that is caused to an object. More abstract qualities,
such as reputations and the economy can also be damaged. Compare
the following:
The
car was so badlydamaged in the accident
that it was barely worth repairing.
When
he got home, he discovered that the vase he had bought had
beendamaged.
If
he continues drinking like that, his reputation as a defence lawyer
will be damaged.
High
inflation was damaging the country's economy.
damage(noun) / damaged (adj)
However,
we can also speak of someone being brain-damaged (not brain-injured)
or suffering brain damage. But this is an exception. Normally
damage relates to inanimate objects:
Professional
boxers sometimes suffer irreversible braindamage.
It
was a huge bomb and thedamage caused to the shopping
precinct was quite extensive.
We
also have the informal expression: What's the damage? meaning
'What is the damage to my purse or my pocket?' in other words:
What do I owe you in payment for this service or these goods?:
Thanks
very much for the work you have done on those curtains. What's
the damage?
harm
(verb)
People
OR things can be harmed or physically damaged:
The
bank robbers were anxious notto harm anyone.
Without
doubt,the burning of fossil fuels harms the environment
in which we live
harm
(noun)
We
have a number of expressions with the noun harm which
are confusingly similar: will come to no harm, it
will do no harm to , there's no harm in ,
no harm done:
Will
my dog be all right with you? ~ He'll be fine. He'llcome to no harm in my garden.
It
will do / can do no harmto remind
him to take the medication before he goes to bed.
She
might not agree, but there's no harm in asking her
to postpone the meeting.
I'm
sorry to crash into you like that! Are you all right? ~
I'm fine. No harm done!
harmful
/ harmless (adjs)
Harmful
and harmless describe something that has or does not
have a bad effect on something else:
He
looks quite ferocious and barks quite loudly, but he's
quite harmless.
The
harmful effects of smoking on people's health is
well-documented.
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