Adj: Causing or likely to cause damage or harm

It doesn’t happen as often now as when I was a voraciously reading teen, but I still get the same kick out of hearing a word I’ve never previously heard — or had need to use — and immediately going in search of its meaning. The last time it happened was in January with “preponderant”.

As I walked my daily commute yesterday, listening to the podcast interview with Australia’s Bob Brown, a transformative figure in Australia’s political and environmental landscape, on Conversations with Richard Fidler, I couldn’t help but smile when I involuntarily repeated Bob Brown after he said the word ‘injurious’. As I walked through Clapham Junction, not particularly bothered about how my fellow commuters felt about my vocal outburst, I knew that I had just welcomed a new word, whatever it meant.

The hunt for the word’s meaning took a little longer than expected because, in my mind, it was spelt ‘endurious’ — something to do with enduring. This may have been influenced by the fact that I am an endurance runner, but the context of Bob’s conversation could also have meant ‘to endure’ rather than ‘to be injured’. Endurious, however, is not a word. Perhaps it should be.

Injurious is an eloquent word for the task it serves, and for someone who is quite apt at falling down, it’s nice to know there’s a word that adds some insight, not insult, to injury.