Also 6 Sc. lessioun, 9 læsion. [ad. F. lésion, ad. L. læsiōn-em, n. of action f. lædĕre to hurt.]
1. Damage, injury; a hurt or flaw, whether material or immaterial.
1452. Dk. York, in Ellis, Orig. Lett., Ser. I. I. 11. What … lesion of honour, & villany is said & reported generally unto the English nation.
c. 1460. G. Ashby, Dicta Philos., 659. Yf ye finde any spotte, fylth, or lesion In any personne or in creature, Dishonnour hym not with derision.
1858. Times, 5 Oct. Looking for faults, for lesions, for bubbles in the gutta-percha.
1859. R. F. Burton, Centr. Afr., in Jrnl. Geog. Soc., XXIX. 89. If the hand after being dipped [in boiling water] shew any sign of lesion, the offence is proven.
1875. Blackmore, A. Lorraine, I. xxvi. 292. Nay, nay, Struan, be not thus hurt by imaginary lesions.
2. Damage or detriment to one’s property or rights. Now only in legal use; chiefly in Civil and Scots Law, applied to such injury involved in a contract as may be pleaded as a ground for setting it aside.
1582–8. Hist. Jas. VI. (1804), 161. Sum men of his … distroyed all his coirnes and housses, to his great enorme lessioun.
1839. W. O. Manning, Law Nations, V. vii. (1875), 352. The contingency of lesion to the rights of those who are not parties to the contest.
1875. Poste, Gaius, I. (ed. 2), 152. The first condition is a Laesion by the operation of civil law, i. e. a disadvantageous change in civil rights or obligations brought about by some omission or disposition of the person who claims relief.
3. Path. Any morbid change in the exercise of functions or the texture of organs.
1747. trans. Astruc’s Fevers, 301. The physician should … examine the lesions of the different functions of these organs.
1808. Med. Jrnl., XIX. 441. Affected with tetanic symptoms, from the læsion of a nerve.
1866. A. Flint, Princ. Med. (1880), 185. A lesion called anthracosis of the lungs.
fig. 1835. Sir W. Hamilton, Discuss. (1852), 532. The lesion of moral and religious principle in the delinquent himself.
1873. H. Rogers, Orig. Bible, ii. 98. That great moral lesion of man’s nature with which the Bible deals.
