wound

lick your wounds

to feel unhappy after a defeat or an unpleasant experience. After retiring to lick its wounds, the party is regaining its confidence.

See also: lick

open/reopen old wounds

to make someone remember an unpleasant event or situation that happened in the past. For many soldiers who served in Vietnam, the current conflict has reopened old wounds.

See also: old, open

rub salt in/into the wound

to make a difficult situation even worse for someone. Losing was bad enough, having to watch them receiving the trophy just rubbed salt into the wound.

See also: rub, salt

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lick your wounds

to avoid or ignore other people after an unpleasant experience. Mary's film career was a failure, and she went home to lick her wounds in private.

Etymology: based on the idea of an injured animal that licks its wounds (= cleans an injury with its tongue)

See also: lick

rub salt into someone's wounds

to make someone feel even worse about something. It's too bad Charlie couldn't come, but let's not tell him they let us in for free — there's no point rubbing salt into his wounds.

See also: rub, salt