injure
Americanverb (used with object)
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injures,
present (3rd person singular)
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injured,
past participle, past
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injuring
present participle
verb
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to cause physical or mental harm or suffering to; hurt or wound
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to offend, esp by an injustice
Synonym Usage
Injure, impair mean to harm or damage something. Injure is a general term referring to any kind or degree of damage: to injure one's spine; to injure one's reputation. To impair is to make imperfect in any way, often with a suggestion of progressive deterioration and of permanency in the result: One's health is impaired by overwork.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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injurernoun
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reinjureverb (used with object)
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injurableadjective
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injuredadjective
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quasi-injuredadjective
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uninjuredadjective
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uninjuringadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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injuresimple
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injuressimple
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have injuredperfect
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has injuredperfect
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am injuringprogressive
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are injuringprogressive
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is injuringprogressive
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have been injuringperfect progressive
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has been injuringperfect progressive
Past
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injuredsimple
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had injuredperfect
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was injuringprogressive
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were injuringprogressive
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had been injuringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of injure
1575–85; back formation from injury (noun); replacing injury (verb)
Explanation
Injure means to hurt, physically or mentally. Lose a bet and you might injure or bruise your pride, but lose your footing and you could injure your body instead. When a player in a sport is injured, they leave the field to be examined by a trainer or a physician, to see how severe their injury really is. If you slip and fall on the ice, your mom might say, "Are you injured?" She doesn't mean a bruise–––she's talking about a broken bone or a sprained ankle. You can also injure or wound someone else. Insult your mother's cooking or tackle your little brother too roughly to the ground and you'll injure them, either emotionally or physically.
Vocabulary lists containing injure
Lesson 1
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Vocabulary Review, Unit 4
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jur, jus, List 1
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Without treatment, severe infestations can badly injure or kill livestock and wildlife.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2026
Normally, cases where police seriously injure or kill people are presented for review to the Justice Systems Integrity Division inside the D.A.’s office, which then decides if charges are warranted.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
He counsels them not to be afraid, even after early clandestine operations injure first the narrator, then Gavriel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The outage, which involved a transformer on the electricity grid, was related to extreme temperatures and did not injure anyone, the prefecture in the coastal department of Finistere said in a statement.
From Barron's ● Jun. 24, 2026
Jody looked quickly into the old man’s face to see whether his feelings should be hurt, but there was no will to injure, no punishing nor putting-in-your-place light in the keen blue eyes.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
One passenger, who suffered severe injuries, and five others with non-life-threatening injures were taken to hospitals.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
In implementing the law, the government further defined "harm" to include "significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering."
From Barron's ● Jul. 10, 2026
Recently he has been affected by injures and issues with his technique, finishing fifth in last year's World Championships.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2024
Sepsis arises when the body has an extreme response to an infection and injures its own tissues and organs.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024
In so doing he injures only those whose fields and houses have been taken away and given to the new inhabitants, who are only a small part of that dominion.
From "The Prince" by Niccolò Machiavelli
"It's a very old idea," he says, noting that net pens have been used to rehabilitate injured wild whales, or temporarily used while re-introducing captured orcas back into the wild.
From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2026
Melbourne storm winger Sua Fa'alogo came off the bench as a replacement for the injured Deine Mariner to score four of Samoa's 14 tries in an emphatic Pool B-C victory in Parramatta.
From BBC ● Oct. 16, 2026
Dozens of people, mainly police, have been injured in the clashes since Tuesday, according to authorities.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
And they didn’t put him on the injured list until early September.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Like an injured bird that dreamed of another sky.
From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack
A friend in her 80s slipped on the stairs to her flooded basement and fell, breaking two posterior ribs and injuring her shoulder.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 5, 2026
Elena Rybakina arrived in New York unable to walk without pain after injuring her foot.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
The tornado, which swept through the Aude department on Monday, hit the village of Pomas hardest, damaging around 300 homes and injuring 39 people, two severely.
From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026
A tornado has torn through the French village of Pomas in the country's south-west, injuring 41 people and damaging hundreds of homes.
From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026
The publicity was characterized as further injuring Ronda Morrison’s parents.
From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson
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