To permanently injure someone

Maim
To injure or wound someone so seriously that a part of their body will no longer work as it should:

- Many people have been maimed for life by these bombs.
- The boy had been maimed in a train wreck.
- Tens of thousands of people are killed and maimed in car accidents around the world annually.

Cripple
To damage someone's body so severely that, they can never move their body properly again.
- Richard was crippled in the bombing of 1984, and had been in a wheelchair ever since.
- The accident crippled her for life.
- The driver, who had been taking drugs, crippled the young woman for life.
- As a child she contracted polio and was crippled for life. He was crippled for life by polio as a child.- He had been warned that another bad fall could cripple him for life...

Collocations
• ADV. for life, permanently As a child she contracted polio and was crippled for life.
• PHRASES be crippled with He's eighty and crippled with arthritis.

Mutilate
To damage someone's body so severely and violently, especially by cutting or removing part of it, usually by someone who physically attacks them.

- More than 30 horses have been mutilated in the last nine months...
- He tortured and mutilated six young men...
- The mutilated bodies of seven men have been found beside a railway line.
- The prisoners had been tortured and mutilated.
- Extra protection for mental patients who might mutilate themselves.
- Many of the bodies had been badly burned or mutilated.

Collocations
badly, horribly, severely, terribly mutilated.

Disfigure
To injure someone's appearance especially their face so that they no longer look attractive.

- She was horribly disfigured by the burns.
- Her body was reportedly found two days later, badly disfigured.
- The other three corpses are said to have been so badly disfigured that identification is proving difficult.
- He was badly disfigured by the accident.
Many women have been disfigured by the cosmetic surgery that has gone wrong.

Collocations
badly, grossly disfigured