damage

From Middle English damage, from Old French damage, from Vulgar Latin *damnāticum from Classical Latin damnum. Compare modern French dommage. Displaced Middle English scath.

• IPA^(key): /ˈdæmɪd͡ʒ/

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• Hyphenation: dam‧age
• Rhymes: -æmɪdʒ

damage (countable and uncountable, plural damages)

1. Injury or harm; the condition or measure of something not being intact.

   The storm did a lot of damage to the area.

   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Friendship”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     Great errors and absurdities many […] commit for want of a friend to tell them of them, to the great damage both of their fame and fortune.

2. (slang) Cost or expense.

   "What's the damage?" he asked the waiter.

Currently it is only used as an uncountable noun,[1][2][3][4][5] except in the specialist legal plural-only sense, which see. There are few examples of the obsolete countable (singular) use.[6]

• damn
• indemnity

damage (third-person singular simple present damages, present participle damaging, simple past and past participle damaged)

1. (transitive) To impair the soundness, goodness, or value of; to harm or cause destruction.

   Be careful not to damage any of the fragile items while unpacking them.

   Cold temperatures, heavy rain, falling rocks, strong winds and glacier movement can damage the equipment.

   • 1774, Edward Long, The History of Jamaica. Or, General Survey of the Antient and Modern State of that Island, volume 2, book 2, chapter 7, 5:

     The building was erected in two years, at the parochial expence, on the foundation of the former one, which was irreparably damaged by the hurricane of Auguſt, 1712.

   • 1702–1704, Edward [Hyde, 1st] Earl of Clarendon, “(please specify |book=I to XVI)”, in The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Begun in the Year 1641. […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed at the Theater, published 1707, →OCLC:

     He […] came up to the English admiral and gave him a broadside, with which he killed many of his men and damaged the ship.

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To undergo damage.
3. (transitive) To remove a damaged or unsalable item from the sales floor for processing.

   Did you damage the items that the customer returned yet?

• undamaged

• damege, dammage, dampnage, domage

From Old French damage, from Vulgar Latin *damnāticum.

• IPA^(key): /daˈmaːd͡ʒ(ə)/, /dɔˈmaːd͡ʒ(ə)/, /ˈdamad͡ʒ(ə)/

damage (plural damages)

1. damage, harm, injury
2. loss (of reputation, etc.)
3. (rare) disability, weakness
4. (law, often in the plural) damages (compensation for loss)

• damagen

• English: damage
• Scots: dammish

• “damāǧe, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

From Vulgar Latin *damnāticum from Classical Latin damnum.

• (classical) IPA^(key): /daˈmadʒə/
• (late) IPA^(key): /daˈmaʒə/

damage oblique singular, m (oblique plural damages, nominative singular damages, nominative plural damage)

1. damage
2. injury, hurt, insult

• damagier

• French: dommage
• Norman: dommage
• → Friulian: daneç
• → Irish: damáiste
• → Middle English: damage (see there for further descendants)
• → Piedmontese: darmage, darmagi
• → Sicilian: damaggiu