An insult is a rude remark or action, and as a verb, to insult means to be rude to someone: He insulted the waiter. It describes words or behaviour that hurt or humiliate a person. It isn't the name of an illness: the sudden brain condition that can leave a person unable to walk or speak is a stroke, and to suffer one is to have a stroke.
insult: will you get the meaning right?
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insult + person; feel insulted; an insult to + person/someone's intelligence; take something as an insult; have a stroke (not an insult)
- He didn't mean it as an insult, but his joke about my accent really hurt.
- Please don't feel insulted when I correct your English; I only want to help.
- The fans insulted the referee, and the club had to pay a fine.
What changed
First versionMy grandmother had an insult last year, and now she walks with a stick.
RevisionMy grandmother had a stroke last year, and now she walks with a stick.
In some languages the word for this illness sounds almost like insult, but a native speaker won't understand had an insult, or will think someone was rude to the grandmother. The medical word is stroke, usually with the verb have: have a stroke.
Close to insult is the verb offend: to upset someone, often without meaning to: I hope I didn't offend you. Insult is ruder and usually deliberate. There's a detail in pronunciation too: the noun is stressed on the first syllable (an INsult), the verb on the second (to inSULT).
Your turn
After the ___, my uncle had to learn to walk and speak again.
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stroke — People have to learn to walk and speak again after a serious illness, and here it's a stroke. An insult is a rude remark, and you don't need to learn to speak again after one.
Think of a time when someone took something you said as an insult. Write what you said and how you put things right afterwards.
I once told a colleague that his presentation was 'fine', and he took it as an insult, so I explained what I really liked about it.
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