emotional scar
5
5.0
- noun
- /ɪˈmoʊʃənl skɑr/
:
cicatriz emocional
- But she still battles the emotional scars.
But I have the emotional scars, I have the physical scars.
- But I have the emotional scars, I have the physical scars.
- I the only things I have leftover from high school are deep emotional scars now.
- Every single one of us have had some kind of trauma, chaos, adversity, pain, frustration in our life that has left a mental or emotional scar on you.
Examples
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The therapy sessions helped her confront the emotional scars from her childhood trauma.
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Most Americans who have gone through the public school system emerge from it with deep emotional scars.
Blog text (5) -
If you have some of these emotional scars, you know exactly what I am talking about.
Blog text (5) -
I suppose it must leave deep emotional scars.
Blog text (17) -
It's the emotional scars I'm waiting to close up.
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I continued to work with him, to help him heal his physical and emotional scars.
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The emotional scars will take time to heal, but you will both get through this.
Blog text (27) -
While his daughter is now being home-schooled, he says emotional scars remain.
Blog text (15) -
He is a teenager now, but still bears the emotional scars from the way he was treated in public school.
Blog text (31) -
People who have been criticized for their singing, or worse, who have been told that they should stop singing for the benefit of those around them, often carry the emotional scars of this disapproval for many years.
Academic text (2002)
Synonyms
171
5.4
A deep hurt to a person's feelings or pride
7
7.4
An old hurt that comes back when you remember it
7
5.6
Long-lasting emotional harm from a very upsetting event
5
6.2
Old feelings and problems from the past that still affect how you feel or act
3
6.3
A deep hurt inside that stays after a painful event
How Severe
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a lasting psychological injury' is directly derivable from combining 'emotional' (relating to feelings) with 'scar' (a lasting mark left by damage); the metaphorical extension of 'scar' to psychological harm is a straightforward, common image. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. 'cicatriz emocional'), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase emotional scar comes from the image of a scar on the skin that stays after a wound and from emotional meaning 'about feelings'. So it shows how a painful event can leave a lasting mark on someone's feelings, and that is why 'emotional scar' means a lasting hurt in the mind.