Given the choice between:
(a) the words cure, heal, wounding,, hit, damage, regeneration, etc... just being words about getting more or less nothing (until the last hp is gone and then being a matter of life and three dice rolls from being dead), and D&D combat meaning no one was ever actually injured in the usual sense until the last swing,
and
(b) hit points being a mishmash of luck, vitality, physical health, etc.. and damage being a mishmash of wounds, exhaustion, depletion of luck, etc... and hits being a mishmash of actual hits of various severity and strenuous rolling with the hits that deplete the stamina and luck and etc... and the game rules just not finding it worth while to give penalties as the hp to down or to separate the meat from the heroic chutzpah on the character sheet
I'll take the the latter and choose to narrate it as an appropriate seeming mixture. The former has always struck me as pretty insipid. Others mileages obviously vary.