injure
Americanverb
-
to cause physical or mental harm or suffering to; hurt or wound
-
to offend, esp by an injustice
Related Words
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
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.
"It doesn't take into consideration injuries or health conditions, so... you could injure yourself," she says.
From BBC • May 7, 2026
The festival is offering a space to do these shows, but also for an audience to have the night out and trust that the show is not going to injure you.”
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 1, 2026
A study published in the American Society of Hematology's journal Blood Red Cells & Iron reports that ultra-endurance events can injure red blood cells in ways that may interfere with how they function.
From Science Daily • Feb. 21, 2026
Border Patrol’s Use of Force policy permits officers to deploy “less-lethal devices,” including pepper spray, for crowd control when protesters act violently or aggressively in ways that suggest they could physically injure officers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 25, 2026
Maggie worried, writing Elisha, “all this talk for and against cannot fail to injure you, as well as myself.”
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
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.
