Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Serious injury to the body, as from physical violence or an accident.
- noun Severe emotional or mental distress caused by an experience.
- noun An experience that causes severe anxiety or emotional distress, such as rape or combat.
- noun An event or situation that causes great disruption or suffering.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An abnormal condition of the living body produced by external violence, as distinguished from that produced by poisons, zymotic infection, bad habits, and other less evident causes; traumatism; an accidental wound, as distinguished from one caused by the surgeon's knife in an operation.
- noun External violence producing bodily injury; the act of wounding, or infliction of a wound.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Any
serious injury to thebody , often resulting fromviolence or anaccident . - noun An
emotional wound leading topsychological injury . - noun An
event that causes greatdistress .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an emotional wound or shock often having long-lasting effects
- noun any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word trauma.
Examples
-
; w; * trauma, trauma* mi casita se puso a saltar la cuerda! pero luego me di cuenta que no era solo mi casita it was todo el Peru que creo que le gusto demasiado Jump it * 0*
crazydark Diary Entry crazydark 2007
-
As Danielle Gardner, whose brother Douglas Gardner worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and died in the World Trade Center, wrote in a remarkable essay published in 2005, I have learned about the whacked-out phenomenon I term trauma envy.
The Truth About Grief Ruth Davis Konigsberg 2011
-
As Danielle Gardner, whose brother Douglas Gardner worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and died in the World Trade Center, wrote in a remarkable essay published in 2005, I have learned about the whacked-out phenomenon I term trauma envy.
The Truth About Grief Ruth Davis Konigsberg 2011
-
"Summer is what we call trauma season," says Matthew Denenberg, division chief for pediatrics at Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids, Mich.
-
As Carlson notes, this trauma is the work of literature itself: For [Shelley], the value of creative writing is in 'preparing' readers for the inability to be prepared.
Introduction 2008
-
From the point of view of the subject, this trauma is a hole, a tear in the symbolic tissue.
-
Aleksei Petrov, one of the most striking and mysterious figures from Bulgaria's 20-year transition, walked into the court-room on crutches due to what he called a trauma from a 2002 assassination attempt.
-
Aleksei Petrov, one of the most striking and mysterious figures from Bulgaria's 20-year transition, walked into the court-room on crutches due to what he called a trauma from a 2002 assassination attempt.
-
Petrov walked into the court-room on crutches due to what he called a trauma from the time of the assassination attempt against him in 2002.
-
Petrov walked into the court-room on crutches due to what he called a trauma from the time of the assassination attempt against him in 2002.
-
Many of these terms do have early, important roots in psychotherapy – the word “triggered”, for example, was first used by psychologists as a way to describe those who were suffering from PTSD after the first world war, while the term “trauma-dumping” was widely popularised by psychotherapist Janina Fisher in her 2017 book Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors.
Are Jonah Hill's texts really 'therapy speak'? I asked a therapist | Daisy Jones Daisy Jones 2023
-
According to Tracy Greene Mintz, LCSW, the nationally recognized expert in transfer trauma, transfer trauma, also known as relocation stress syndrome, includes a cluster of symptoms that occur in a senior after moving.
What Is Transfer Trauma And How To Avoid It | CarePatrol Mopdog 2024
-
It’s funny how people went from “Oh if you need to talk you’re never alone” to “don’t trauma dump on others it makes people so uncomfortable and traumatizes them!😡”
“trauma dumping” is just shaming victims. Natural_Priority_424 2026
-
When you dump trauma on someone who hasn't consented to it, it's not an act of connection, it's an act of coercion. Repeatedly trauma dumping on someone non-consensually without giving them a way out of it is a way to traumatize them and pass on the trauma.
What is trauma dumping and how is it a bad thing? ElishaAlison 2026
-
It’s funny how people went from “Oh if you need to talk you’re never alone” to “don’t trauma dump on others it makes people so uncomfortable and traumatizes them!😡”
-
When you dump trauma on someone who hasn't consented to it, it's not an act of connection, it's an act of coercion. Repeatedly trauma dumping on someone non-consensually without giving them a way out of it is a way to traumatize them and pass on the trauma.
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.