Harmful

//ˈhɑːmfl̩// adj

adj ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Causing or likely to cause harm or damage; injurious.

    "Wear a hat to protect your skin from harmful sunlight."

Adjective
  1. 1
    causing or capable of causing harm wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
deleteriousmischievousperniciousbadbanefulcounterproductive

Example

More examples

"Smoking may be harmful to his heart."

Etymology

From Middle English harmful, from Old English *hearmful (suggested by hearmfullīċ (“harmful; hurtful”)), equivalent to harm + -ful. Cognate with German harmvoll, Danish harmfuld, Swedish harmfull.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.