Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To injure without breaking the skin; bruise.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 1. To beat; bruise; pound; pulverize by beating.
  • To injure the flesh of, by impact of a blunt surface, with or without a breach of the integument; bruise by violent contact or pressure. If the injury is accompanied by a breaking of the skin, it is called a contused wound; if not, a contusion.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To beat, pound, or bray together.
  • transitive verb To bruise; to injure or disorganize a part without breaking the skin.
  • transitive verb a wound attended with bruising.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To injure without breaking the skin; to bruise.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb injure the underlying soft tissue or bone of

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English contusen, from Latin contundere, contūs-, to beat : com-, intensive pref.; see com– + tundere, to beat.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From (the participle stem of) Latin contundere ("pound or beat small"), from com- + tundere ("beat, thump").

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