Word.ws English Dictionary

damages

Syllables: dam·ag·es/ˈdæmɪd͡ʒɪz/

damages is the third-person singular simple present indicative of damage.

Meaning of damage

Verb

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.
    Synonyms:
    harm, injure, abuse, annoy, bewound, damnify, dere, do damage to, do for, do ill
  2. (intransitive, obsolete) To undergo damage; to take 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?

See all 5 meanings of damage

Noun

damages pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only) 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.
    • The WTO dispute settlement mechanism is characterized by weaknesses such as non-retroactive damages.2020, Anu Bradford, “8. Is the Brussels Effect Beneficial?”, in The Brussels Effect. How the European Union Rules the World, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 260

Words formed from damages

Phrases with damages

Questions about damages

What does damages mean?
Damages means 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.
What is damages the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Damages is the third-person singular simple present indicative of damage.
What part of speech is damages?
Damages is a noun.
How do you pronounce damages?
Damages is pronounced /ˈdæmɪd͡ʒɪz/.

Words near damages in the dictionary

  1. damagement
  2. damagements
  3. damageous
  4. damager
  5. damagers
  6. damages
  7. damages feasant
  8. damageth
  9. damaging
  10. damagingly
  11. damagingness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: damages (page history and authors); damage (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-damages.ogg.

Cite this entry: “damages.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/damages. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.