Maim
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
To deprive a person of a member or part of the body, the loss of which renders him less capable of fighting; to commit mayhem, q. v. To maim a domestic animal implies permanent injury: disfiguring is a lower grade of the same offence, and need not be permanent; and however slight it may be, yet, if it lessen the animal's value, and be done with malicious intent, the offence is complete.
State V. Harris, 11 Iowa, 414.
In this respect, " to wound " is distinguishable from " to maim; " for the latter implies a permanent injury, whereas a wound is any mutilation or laceration which breaks the continuity of the outer skin.
Reg. v. Bullock, 11 Cox Cr. Cos. 125.
In New York, smce the 2 Kev. Stat. 665, § 36, a blow aimed at and delivered upon the head cannot constitute the crime of assault and battery with intent to maim.
Foster v. People, 50 N. Y. 598.