Wound

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /wuːnd/

Definitions

1. A physical injury where the skin or flesh is cut or damaged ; the past action of turning or twisting something tightly or repeatedly
2. Damage to living tissue caused by a cut, blow, or other impact ; the completed act of wrapping or twisting something around an object
3. A break or tear in body tissue often caused by external force ; the previous act of coiling or rotating something by hand or mechanism

Etymology: The noun and the verb "wound" are the same word in different guises, and the two senses share a surprisingly distant ancestor. The noun descends from Old English "wund", traceable back to a Proto-Germanic form ""wundō", and the verb from Old English "wundian", meaning to inflict such an injury. Across the Germanic languages the family resemblance is strong: Dutch "wond", German "Wunde", Icelandic "und", and Gothic "wunda" all mean an injury, and the Gothic verb "gawundōn" means to wound. The Gothic word "wundufni" even means disease or plague, which hints at how closely early speakers linked bodily harm with sickness. The root behind all of this is reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European ""wen-", meaning to strive, toil, or win. That sense of struggle is a plausible route to a word for a hurt suffered in combat, though the connection is inferred rather than documented. The second meaning, wrapping something around an object, is a different word that happens to be spelled identically. It belongs to the verb "wind", and the spelling "wound" in this sense is a later development that pairs with the pronunciation of the noun. The two words are thus unrelated in origin, and only the spelling and sound of the past tense of "wind" have merged with the older noun.

Synonyms: injury, cut, gash, bruise

Antonyms: healing, repair