Word.ws English Dictionary

actual bodily harm

actual bodily harm noun: hurt or injury which interferes with the health or comfort of the victim and which is more than transient or trifling.

Noun

actual bodily harm (uncountable)

  1. (UK, strictly) Hurt or injury which interferes with the health or comfort of the victim and which is more than transient or trifling.
  2. (UK, broadly) The criminal offence of causing actual bodily harm.
    • Anthony Williams (32), of Langford Road, Peterborough, was arrested and charged with ten counts of attempted murder, one count of ABH (Actual Bodily Harm), and one count of possession of a bladed article.2025 November 12, David Stubbings, “Knife attack: heroes hailed for saving lives”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 10

Forms of actual bodily harm

alternative abbreviationABH

Questions about actual bodily harm

What does actual bodily harm mean?
Actual bodily harm means hurt or injury which interferes with the health or comfort of the victim and which is more than transient or trifling.
What part of speech is actual bodily harm?
Actual bodily harm is a noun.

Words near actual bodily harm in the dictionary

  1. ACTU
  2. actuability
  3. actual
  4. actual argument
  5. actual arguments
  6. actual bodily harm
  7. actual cash value
  8. actual cash values
  9. actual cost
  10. actual costs
  11. actual flying time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: actual bodily harm (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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