Harmless

//ˈhɑːmləs// adj

adj ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.

    "Near-synonyms: benign, innocuous, innocent, undamaging, nonthreatening, unthreatening"

  2. 2
    Not intended to harm; inoffensive.

    "His humor can be annoying but is harmless."

  3. 3
    Unharmed. obsolete
Adjective
  1. 1
    not causing or capable of causing harm wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
innocuousbenigninnocentinoffensiveundamagingbenign

Example

More examples

"Liberty consists of being able to make everything as harmless as possible."

Etymology

From Middle English harmles, from Old English *hearmlēas, from Proto-Germanic *harmalausaz (“without harm; harmless”), equivalent to harm + -less. Cognate with German harmlos (“harmless”), Danish harmløs (“harlmess”), Swedish harmlös (“harmless”).

Related phrases

hold harmlesssave harmless

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