injurious

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English injurious,^[2] borrowed from Old French injurios (“unjust, harmful”),^[3][2] later injurieux,^[4][5][6] and directly borrowed from Latin iniūriōsus (“unlawful, wrongful, harmful”),^[3][2][5] from iniūria (“injustice, wrong, insult, harm”),^[4][3][7] the noun use of the feminine of iniūrius (“unjust, wrongful”), from in- (“not”) and iūs (“right”).^[4] It belongs with injury.^[3][4] The Anglo-Norman injurieux is recorded from about 1136–65, for "harmful", "doing wrong" and "abusive".^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of words, abusive, insulting: about 1425, in a Middle English Bible text at the apostles' punishment, iniuryos wordes, rendering Latin contumeliis.^[2] Etymonline likewise has the early 15th century, with the sense "abusive".^[3] The first quotation in the OED is from 1484, in Caxton's translation of Aesop's fables.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word took in the whole range of the Latin adjective: insulting words, wrongful acts and malicious intentions all appear in Middle English.^[2] The sense of wrongful or unjust, invading another's rights, leads Johnson's list of 1755, with the injurious Roman from Shakespeare's Cymbeline.^[9][4] The Shorter Oxford also quotes Shakespeare's Thou injurious tribune for a person.^[5] The physical sense "harmful, damaging" dates from 1559^[4] and is now the main one;^[10][11] the OED says the insulting sense now applies only to words or speech and is passing into it.^[4] In law the word survives in injurious falsehood, a malicious false statement about property, and injurious affection, the loss in value of land when part of it is compulsorily acquired.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – of words, abusive.^[2][3]
• before 1460 – of actions, wrongful.^[2] The OED's first quotation for wrongful conduct is from before 1513.^[4]
• before 1500 – of intentions, malicious.^[2]
• 1559 – tending to hurt or damage; harmful.^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Causing or likely to cause harm; harmful, detrimental: Fumes from the kiln proved injurious to the workers' lungs.^{[11][12][10][4]}
2. Of language, abusive, insulting or slanderous: He regretted his injurious remarks about his partner.^{[11][12][10][4]}
3. Wrongful; unjustly hurtful to another's rights.^[4][9]

Word family

• injuriously
• injuriousness
• preinjurious
• self-injurious
• noninjurious
• uninjurious

Related words

• injury
• injure

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins