blessés

Blessés is a French noun and adjective derived from the verb blesser, meaning to wound or injure. In masculine plural form it is blessés; feminine plural blessées; singular masculine blessé; singular feminine blessée. The term is used to refer to people who have sustained physical injury, typically in accidents, violence, or military action.

In medical, emergency, and military contexts, blessés denotes those who require care. The expression is commonly paired with qualifiers indicating severity, such as blessé léger (lightly injured), blessé grave (seriously injured), or triaged by levels of urgency. In journalism, les blessés describes the casualties of an incident without specifying names unless further information is available.

Outside medical settings, the term can appear in sports reporting to describe injured players, or in everyday language to talk about someone who was hurt. The word does not imply fatality; casualties who die are described with terms such as tués or morts, depending on the context. The distinction between blessés and other related terms is important for precise reporting and care planning in institutions that handle injuries.