damages
noun
Form of damage , plural of damage.
Simple meaning
A sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
damuhjuhzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdæmədʒəz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
law
A sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury
law
The money paid or awarded to a claimant (in England), a pursuer (in Scotland) or a plaintiff (in the US) in a civil action as compensation for a loss suffered by the same.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A sum of money paid in compensation for loss or injury
Used this way, damages is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a legal use: the wording is institutional and carries a defined meaning in law rather than a loose everyday one.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Law/legal
- Government/politics
- Academic writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use damages
- “The company had to pay large damages for the harm caused by their product.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The occurrence of a change for the worse.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Compensation for losses that can readily be proven to have occurred and for which the injured party has the right to be compensated.
Twice the amount that a court would normally find the injured party entitled to.
Compensation in excess of actual damages (a form of punishment awarded in cases of malicious or willful misconduct).
Compensation for losses that can readily be proven to have occurred and for which the injured party has the right to be compensated.
A trivial sum (usually $1.00) awarded as recognition that a legal injury was sustained (as for technical violations of a contract).
Compensation in excess of actual damages (a form of punishment awarded in cases of malicious or willful misconduct).
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: sum of money paid in compensation for loss
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.