What is the difference between a wound and an injury? In general, I would say that an injury is something that a person suffers as a result of an accident, while a wound is something that is inflicted by an assailant, so that to move to the verb, I am injured if a wall collapses on me because the wind has blown it over, but I am wounded if the wall collapses because someone planted a bomb near to it.
Because this is how I distinguish between these words, I was surprised that the BBC has been reporting that people have been wounded at the Grand Mosque in Mecca following the toppling of a crane during bad weather. Two weeks ago, when an aircraft crashed in Sussex during an airshow, the survivors were described as being injured.
Either way, it has been a terrible accident, but with all the attacks going on worldwide at the moment, the reports seemed to imply some malice behind the crane’s collapse which I don’t think was there.
September 21, 2015 at 7:58 pm
I would agree with you about how I expect the verbs to be used, but the nouns are a different matter, and you did open your posting with a question about nouns.
I would expect a wound to involve the skin being cut or grazed, whereas an injury might be a broken bone or an internal injury of some sort. You dress wounds in first aid, not injuries.
(I am not a medic and my first aid training is very out of date.)
September 21, 2015 at 8:26 pm
In the Uxbridge English Dictionary, I think the difference is that injury means “like India”.
September 22, 2015 at 9:26 am
Paul – Understood!
November 10, 2015 at 11:43 pm
Influence from law, perhaps? In law, a wound breaks the skin.