Comments on: Wound that could have healed cleanly, but ended up as a very ugly scar

Question: Wound that could have healed cleanly, but ended up as a very ugly scar

Jairus — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:06:57 -0800

Is there a word in any language that means "wound that could have healed cleanly, but ended up as a very ugly scar"?

By: dg

dg — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:24:33 -0800

In English - "my heart"

By: the cuban

the cuban — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:30:37 -0800

divorce?

By: Witty

Witty — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:36:44 -0800

Glornk

or

Schpah ?

By: peacay

peacay — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 05:45:07 -0800

That's a very specific question...any more info?
You seem sure it exists. Why?

By: Tarrama

Tarrama — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:04:07 -0800

Keloid ?

By: Prospero

Prospero — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:44:02 -0800

"Keloid" is the first word I thought of.

By: spicynuts

spicynuts — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 06:58:57 -0800

Iraq?

By: veronica sawyer

veronica sawyer — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:13:50 -0800

The first thought I had was proudflesh.

By: booth

booth — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 07:48:54 -0800

You might try plugging in scar, wound, keloid, or other combinations of words into the Reverse Dictionary.

By: zadcat

zadcat — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:03:34 -0800

cicatrix

By: furtive

furtive — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 08:34:09 -0800

Not as concise as you're looking for, but disfigured is first thing that came to mind.

By: matteo

matteo — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 10:43:54 -0800

I second the "keloid" comments above, it's the word you're looking for, but it's quite technical and probably lots of people won't immediately understand its meaning.

speaking of keloids: Body art: What to consider before getting stuck

By: drpynchon

drpynchon — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 11:46:19 -0800

Keloid, as a matter of fact, is NOT the word you are looking for. Keloids are a very particular kind of scarring reaction with specific histological findings. It may be ugly, but I'm not sure it's a wound "that could have healed cleanly." At best keliods are a subset of the word you're looking for, but unfortunately I can't think of a single word that describes it in English.

By: gramcracker

gramcracker — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 11:50:59 -0800

Keloids "could have healed cleanly," if the wound was on a person that isn't a keloid-former. But that's as close to "could have" as you're going to get.

By: Aquaman

Aquaman — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:00:32 -0800

"Cicatrice" might be what you're looking for...

By: ontic

ontic — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 12:39:23 -0800

You would think this would be a place where Klingon would finally come in handy, but I'm not finding anything.

It seems like there could be an additional bit of detail to what you are looking for -- are you looking for "a wound that could have healed cleanly, but ended up as a very ugly scar through neglect of the wound" or "a wound that could have healed cleanly, but ended up as a very ugly scar despite efforts to help it heal cleanly"? A very poetic concept either way.

By: yeoz

yeoz — Tue, 15 Mar 2005 19:18:39 -0800

Slightly off-topic, but, I have one of those scars.
I call it a reminder. :P
(It was sorta self-inflicted, and, it could've healed cleanly, but, I decided that I needed a reminder of why I did what I did.)

By: ikkyu2

ikkyu2 — Sat, 19 Mar 2005 02:39:17 -0800

The non-keloid sort of bad wound healing is called 'dystrophic scarring.' Or, if like me, you wish to be an 1850's Sorbonne physician with a starched waistcoast and a top hat, you might call it 'dystrophia cutis.'