Friday, February 6, 2026

A few medical terms

The broadest English term for 受伤 is injury, while wound refers only to injuries with visible cuts or skin damage, and does not include sprains, strains, or bruises. A sprain is an injury to a ligament (the connection between bones), and a strain is an injury to a muscle or tendon (the connection between muscle and bone). [英语“受伤”最广义的词是injury,而wound仅指有可见伤口或皮肤损伤的伤,不包括扭伤sprain、拉伤strain、瘀伤bruise。扭伤是韧带(ligament,骨骼与骨骼的连接)受伤,拉伤是指肌肉或肌腱(tendon,肌肉与骨骼的连接)受伤。]

By the way, a non-medical person may confuse the two words ligament and tendon. Here's a trick. A ligament is a link, connecting two things of the same type, between one bone and another bone in this case. (Generally speaking, there's no such thing connecting a muscle to another muscle, so that's ruled out.) For tendon, think of the word tension; they both begin with ten- and end with -on. When a muscle pulls on a bone, the muscle is under tension.

In case you can't think of link when seeing ligament, think of the word ligature (as 'fi' for 'f' and 'i' bound by a ligature, or 'æ' for 'a' and 'e'), or even league, which originally meant a pact binding governments.

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