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flesh wound

flesh wound

13 3.7
A wound that only affects the skin and soft parts of the body, not organs or bones
  • noun
  • /flɛʃ wuːnd/
translation icon : herida superficial
  • Lucky for her, it was only a flesh wound.
  • just a flesh wound
  • only a flesh wound
  • minor flesh wounds

Examples

Synonyms

wound
vsflesh wound
971 2.2

An injury where the skin is cut or torn

refers only to damage of skin and soft tissue without harming organs or bones

How Severe

penetrating injury
  • Specialized
2 6.3
laceration
  • NSFW
75 7.7
flesh wound
13 3.7
graze
4 3.4
scratch
203 1.6

Surface Forms

flesh wound singular
flesh wounds plural

Morphology

flesh + wound

The meaning 'a wound that affects only the skin and soft tissue' is directly derivable from combining 'flesh' (skin/soft tissue) with 'wound' (an injury); it follows a regular noun‑noun compounding pattern where the first noun specifies the location/type of the second. This compositional, cross‑linguistically common structure makes the phrase immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.

Etymology

Flesh wound comes from the simple picture of a cut that only touches the flesh, meaning the skin and soft parts, and not the bones or organs. Because it does not hit important parts, people used it to mean 'not serious' or 'not life-threatening'.