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Can you be scathed instead of unscathed?
We often hear of a person coming through some difficult circumstance, or dangerous endeavor, and “emerging unscathed,” yet we rarely hear of anyone “emerging scathed.” Why is this? Scathe is a word: it may function as a noun (“harm, injury”) or as a verb (“to do harm to,” “to assail with withering denunciation”). It is not as commonly found as it once was, and now primarily serves as the basis for the adjective scathing (“bitterly severe”) or for the latter portion of unscathed. So you can say that someone “emerged scathed” if you wish, but be advised that it will have a curiously archaic sound to it.
Examples of unscathed in a Sentence
Ryan Canfield, FOXNews.com, 29 May 2025
But while all of the pets escaped the experience unscathed, the footage of them panicking and running in all directions remains hard for Tracey to watch.
—Jack Beresford, MSNBC Newsweek, 28 May 2025
Fortunately, Melody did not sustain any serious injuries in the fall, and came away unscathed aside from a few scratches, which her mother described as a miracle.
—David Chiu, People.com, 26 May 2025
That’s perhaps to demonstrate how unaffected and unscathed that J.B., a comfortably middle-class white guy who comes from a comfortably middle-class family, is from all that noise of draft dodgers, dope fiends, and radical feminists banging on the door.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 23 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for unscathed
Cite this Entry
“Unscathed.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/unscathed. Accessed 10 Jun. 2025.
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unscathed
adjective
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