"It's just a flesh wound," the hero said as he rode off into the sunset, his garment spattered with ketchup.

Perhaps, but wounds take many forms, and a mere flesh wound can lead to fatal blood loss under the wrong conditions. You can get hurt in so many different ways:

  • Abrasion: Commonly known as a scrape, an abrasion is simply a superficial, open wound in which the skin has been rubbed away by friction with another surface.
  • Contusion: Just a fancy way of saying bruise. A contusion is a closed wound; the skin remains unbroken but bleeding occurs beneath. Contusions often arise from contact sports such as football, rugby, and bar fights.
  • Incision: A cut with smooth edges, caused by a sharp implement such as a knife or piece of glass. Bleeding can be severe if the wound is deep enough, but incisions are usually easy to repair.
  • Laceration: A jagged-edged, open wound caused by a blunt object meeting the body with great force. Lacerations are often severe, bleed profusely and become easily infected.
  • Puncture: A deep wound caused by a narrow, pointed object such as a knife (likely a thin, stiletto-type blade in this case) or nail. Bleeding is usually light, but objects can remain embedded in the flesh, and the risk of infection is high.
  • Avulsion: Skin and underlying flesh are violently torn from the body. Avulsions, commonly caused by animal bites and explosions, are severe traumas that require immediate medical attention.
  • Amputation: A body part, flesh, bones and all, becomes detached from the rest of the body. Amputations are obviously dire injuries, and often result from industrial accidents. Get thee to a hospital.

Wound (?),

imp. & p. p. of Wind to twist, and Wind to sound by blowing.

 

© Webster 1913.


Wound [OE. wounde, wunde, AS. wund; akin to OFries. wunde, OS. wunda, D. wonde, OHG. wunta, G. wunde, Icel. und, and to AS., OS., & G. wund sore, wounded, OHG. wunt, Goth. wunds, and perhaps also to Goth. winnan to suffer, E. win. 140. Cf. Zounds.]

1.

A hurt or injury caused by violence; specifically, a breach of the skin and flesh of an animal, or in the substance of any creature or living thing; a cut, stab, rent, or the like.

Chaucer.

Showers of blood Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen. Shak.

2.

Fig.: An injury, hurt, damage, detriment, or the like, to feeling, faculty, reputation, etc.

3. CriminalLaw

An injury to the person by which the skin is divided, or its continuity broken; a lesion of the body, involving some solution of continuity.

⇒ Walker condemns the pronunciation woond as a "capricious novelty." It is certainly opposed to an important principle of our language, namely, that the Old English long sound written ou, and pronounced like French ou or modern English oo, has regularly changed, when accented, into the diphthongal sound usually written with the same letters ou in modern English, as in ground, hound, round, sound. The use of ou in Old English to represent the sound of modern English oo was borrowed from the French, and replaced the older and Anglo-Saxon spelling with u. It makes no difference whether the word was taken from the French or not, provided it is old enough in English to have suffered this change to what is now the common sound of ou; but words taken from the French at a later time, or influenced by French, may have the French sound.

Wound gall Zool., an elongated swollen or tuberous gall on the branches of the grapevine, caused by a small reddish brown weevil (Ampeloglypter sesostris) whose larvae inhabit the galls.

 

© Webster 1913.


Wound (?), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wounded; p. pr. & vb. n. Wounding.] [AS. wundian. 140. See Wound, n.]

1.

To hurt by violence; to produce a breach, or separation of parts, in, as by a cut, stab, blow, or the like.

The archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. 1 Sam. xxxi. 3.

2.

To hurt the feelings of; to pain by disrespect, ingratitude, or the like; to cause injury to.

When ye sin so against the brethren, and wound their weak conscience, ye sin against Christ. 1 Cor. viii. 12.

 

© Webster 1913.

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