injury
    n 1: any physical damage to the body caused by violence or
         accident or fracture etc. [syn: injury, hurt, harm,
         trauma]
    2: an accident that results in physical damage or hurt [syn:
       injury, accidental injury]
    3: a casualty to military personnel resulting from combat [syn:
       wound, injury, combat injury]
    4: an act that causes someone or something to receive physical
       damage
    5: wrongdoing that violates another's rights and is unjustly
       inflicted

Injury \In"ju*ry\, n.; pl. Injuries. [OE. injurie, L. injuria,
   fr. injurius injurious, wrongful, unjust; pref. in- not +
   jus, juris, right, law, justice: cf. F. injure. See Just,
   a.]
   Any damage or hurt done to a person or thing; detriment to,
   or violation of, the person, character, feelings, rights,
   property, or interests of an individual; that which injures,
   or occasions wrong, loss, damage, or detriment; harm; hurt;
   loss; mischief; wrong; evil; as, his health was impaired by a
   severe injury; slander is an injury to the character.
   [1913 Webster]

         For he that doeth injury shall receive that that he did
         evil.                                    --Wyclif(Col.
                                                  iii. 25).
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         Many times we do injury to a cause by dwelling on
         trifling arguments.                      --I. Watts.
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         Riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
         And injury and outrage.                  --Milton.
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   Note: Injury in morals and jurisprudence is the intentional
         doing of wrong. --Fleming.

   Syn: Harm; hurt; damage; loss; impairment; detriment; wrong;
        evil; injustice.
        [1913 Webster]

INJURY. A wrong or tort. Injuries are divided into public and private; and 
they affect the. person, personal property, or real property. 
     3.-1. They affect the person absolutely or relatively. The absolute 
injuries are, threats and menaces, assaults, batteries, wounding, mayhems; 
injuries to health, by nuisances or medical malpractices. Those affecting 
reputation are, verbal slander, libels, and malicious prosecutions; and 
those affecting personal liberty are, false imprisonment and malicious 
prosecutions. The relative injuries are those which affect the rights of a 
husband; these are, abduction of the wife, or harboring her, adultery and 
battery those which  affect the rights of a parent, as, abduction, 
seduction, or battery of a child; and of a master, seduction, harboring and 
battery of his apprentice or servant. Those which conflict with the rights 
of the inferior relation, namely, the wife, child, apprentice, or servant, 
are, withholding conjugal rights, maintenance, wages, &c. 
     4.-2. Injuries to personal property, are, the unlawful taking and 
detention thereof from the owner; and other injuries are, some damage 
affecting the same while in the claimant's possession, or that of a third 
person, or injuries to his reversionary interests. 
     5.-3. Injuries to real property are, ousters, trespasses nuisances, 
waste, subtraction of rent, disturbance of right of way, and the like. 
     6. Injuries arise in three ways. 1. By nonfeasance, or the not doing 
what was a legal obligation, or. duty, or contract, to perform. 2. 
Misfeasance, or the performance, in an improper manner, of an act which it 
was either the party's duty, or his contract, to perform. 3. Malfeasance, or 
the unjust performance of some act which the party had no right, or which he 
had contracted not to do. 
     7. The remedies are different, as the injury affects private 
individuals, or the public. 1. When the injuries affect a private right and 
a private individual, although often also affecting the public, there are 
three descriptions of remedies: 1st. The preventive, such as defence, 
resistance, recaption, abatement of nuisance, surety of the peace, 
injunction, &c. 2d. Remedies for compensation, which may be by arbitration, 
suit, action, or summary proceedings before a justice of the peace. 3d. 
Proceedings for punishment, as by indictment, or summary Proceedings before 
a justice. 2. When the injury is such as to affect the public, it becomes a 
crime, misdemeanor, or offence, and the party may be punished by indictment 
or summary conviction, for the public injury; and by civil action at the 
suit of the party, for the private wrong. But in cases of felony, the remedy 
by action for the private injury is generally suspended until the party 
particularly injured has fulfilled his duty to the public by prosecuting the 
offender for the public crime; and in cases of homicide the remedy is merged 
in the felony. 1 Chit. Pr. 10; Ayl. Pand. 592. See 1 Miles' Rep. 316, 17; 
and article Civil Remedy. 
     8. There are many injuries for which the law affords no remedy. In 
general, it interferes only when there has been a visible bodily injury 
inflicted by force or poison, while it leaves almost totally unprotected the 
whole class of the most malignant mental injuries and sufferings unless in a 
few cases, where, by descending to a fiction, it sordidly supposes some 
pecuniary loss, and sometimes, under a mask, and contrary to its own legal 
principles, affords compensation to wounded feelings. A parent, for example, 
cannot sue, in that character, for an injury inflicted on his child and when 
his own domestic happiness has been destroyed, unless the fact will sustain 
the allegation that the daughter was the servant of her father, and that, 
by, reason of such seduction, he lost the benefit of her services. Another 
instance may be mentioned: A party cannot recover damages for verbal slander 
in many cases; as, when the facts published are true, for the defendant 
would justify and the party injured must fail. A case of this kind, 
remarkably bard, occurred in England. A young nobleman had seduced a young 
woman, who, after living with him some time, became sensible of the 
impropriety of her conduct. She left him secretly, and removed to an obscure 
place in the kingdom, where she obtained a situation, and became highly 
respected in consequence of her good conduct she was even promoted to a 
better and more public employment when she was unfortunately discovered by 
her seducer. He made proposals to her to renew their illicit intercourse, 
which were rejected; in order to, force her to accept them, he published the 
history of her early life, and she was discharged from her employment, and 
lost the good opinion of those on whom she depended for her livelihood. For 
this outrage the culprit could not be made answerable, civilly or 
criminally. Nor will the law punish criminally the author of verbal slander, 
imputing even the most infamous crimes, unless done with intent to extort a 
chattel, money, or valuable thing. The law presumes, perhaps unnaturally 
enough, that a man is incapable of being alarmed or affected by such 
injuries to his feelings. Vide 1 Chit. Med. Jur. 320. See, generally, Bouv. 
Inst. Index, h. t. 

INJURY, civil law, In the technical sense of the term it is a delict 
committed in contempt, or outrage of any one, whereby his body, his dignity, 
or his reputation, is. maliciously injured. Voet, Com. ad Pand. lib. 47, t. 
10, n. 1. 
     2. Injuries may be divided into two classes, With reference to the 
means used by the wrong doer, namely, by words and by acts. The first are 
called verbal injuries, the latter real. 
     3. A verbal injury, when directed against a private person, consists in 
the uttering contumelious words, which tend to expose his character, by 
making him little or ridiculous. Where the offensive words are uttered in 
the beat of a dispute, and spoken to the person's face, the law does not 
presume any malicious intention in the utterer, whose resentment generally 
subsides with his passion;, and yet, even in that case, the truth of the 
injurious words seldom absolves entirely from punishment. Where the 
injurious expressions have a tendency to blacken one's moral character, or 
fix some particular guilt upon him, and are deliberately repeated in 
different companies, or banded about in whispers to confidants, it then 
grows up to the crime of slander, agreeably to the distinction of the Roman 
law, 1. 15, Sec. 12, de injur. 
     4. A reat injury is inflicted by any fact by which a person's honor or 
dignity is affected; as striking one with a cane, or even aiming a blow 
without striking; spitting in one's face; assuming a coat of arms, or any 
other mark of distinction proper to another, &c. The composing and publish 
in defamatory libels maybe reckoned of this kind. Ersk. Pr. L. Scot. 4, 4, 
45. 

INJURY, n.  An offense next in degree of enormity to a slight.