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:
Mr. Boorman managed to injure himself gravely by whipping up dust storms on the Warner Bros. lot; fungal spores got into his lungs and he contracted a rare, sometimes debilitating disease called Valley Fever.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026
"He could injure his arm or leg. At Tyson's age, with hard training camps, that can happen. It could also happen to Joshua."
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
For years, “harm” meant actions that injure or kill wildlife, as well as actions that destroy protected habitats.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 11, 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
“Perhaps there are too many or it does not dare, for it might injure those who are blameless. But Yishan will watch out for you.”
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
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
The novel begins at the end, in the aftermath of a skydiving accident that gravely injures the father.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 4, 2025
No major injures were reported in that crash.
From BBC ● Jan. 2, 2025
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
There have been 50 people injured, including seven children.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
The government has reported that at least 215 students and 715 police officers have been injured since the start of the movement.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
“Always keep a safe distance from wildlife and contact your local animal control if you encounter an animal that appears sick, injured, or is behaving unusually.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
The lawsuit details 15 examples dating to 2017 in which injured individuals tell medical attendants a different story than the one the law firm relates in its injury claims against the city.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
After the would-be assassin was captured and the injured men were taken to a hospital, Franz Ferdinand insisted on continuing to City Hall, where he was greeted by the mayor.
From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman
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
Complication rates vary but there was a 25–50% chance of not getting the whole tumour out and a 0.5–2% chance of injuring a major blood vessel.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 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
Alcaraz has been MIA from the courts since April, when he withdrew after injuring the wrist on his right, racket-side hand.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 21, 2026
Do I want to chance injuring my paws again if I try?
From "Wayward Creatures" by Dayna Lorentz
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
