harm
/hɑːm//hɑɹm/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
harm noun: physical injury; hurt; damage.
Noun
harm (countable and uncountable, plural harms)
- Physical injury; hurt; damage.
- No harm came to my possessions.
- You can do a lot of harm to someone if you kick them in the teeth.
- Emotional or figurative hurt.
- Although not physically injured in the car accident, she received some psychological harm.
- And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
- Detriment; misfortune.
- I wish him no harm.
- That which causes injury, damage, or loss.
- We, ignorant of ourselves, / Beg often our own harms.c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
Verb
harm (third-person singular simple present harms, present participle harming, simple past and past participle harmed)
- To damage, hurt, or injure something, usually an inanimate object.
- Will justice and conscience of society not be harmed if people avoid the truth?2020 December 16, Yan Ming, “Awakening Moral Conscience”, in Minghui
harm meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
harm in Hindi
- injury; hurt; damage
- चोट coṭ, घाव ghāv, अपकार apkār
harm in Tamil
- injury; hurt; damage
- கெடுதல் keṭutal, நாசம் nācam, நஷ்டம் naṣṭam
harm in Marathi
- injury; hurt; damage
- ईजा ījā
harm in Urdu
- harm; wrong
- قباحت qabāhat
- harm, injury
- ضرر zarar
- harm
- ہنسا hinsā
More languagesFewer languages
- harm in Bengali
- সদমা śodoma
- harm in Telugu
- హాని hāni
- harm in Malayalam
- ഉപദ്രവം upadravaṁ
- harm in Kannada
- ಕೇಡು, ಕೆಡುಕು, ತೊಂದರೆ, ಅಪಾಯ
- harm in Punjabi
- ہانی hānī, ਆਂਚ āñca
- harm in Gujarati
- નુકસાન nuksān
- harm in Sanskrit
- द्रुह् druh, द्रुह्यति druhyati, हिनस्ति hinasti, रेषयति reṣáyati
- harm in Pashto
- صدمه sadamá, تاوان tāwān
- harm in Arabic
- ضَرَرٌ ḍararun, ضَرَّ أَضَرَّ ḍarra
- harm in Malay
- mudarat, keburukan
- harm in Persian
- آسیب âsib
- harm in Thai
- ความเสียหาย kwaam-sǐia-hǎai, ทำร้าย tam-ráai
- harm in Vietnamese
- hại, làm hại
Examples of harm in a sentence
- You should vary your diet. Eating just bread will do you harm in the end.
- The squeaking won’t do any harm, but if it makes your teeth itch, oil the hinge.
- He brushed past, doing no harm but not apologizing for his contact either.
Synonyms of harm
14 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of harm
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | harms |
| alternative form | harme |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | harms |
| present participle | harming |
| past participle | harmed |
| past | harmed |
Origin of harm
From Middle English harm, herm, from Old English hearm, from Proto-West Germanic *harm, from Proto-Germanic *harmaz (“harm; shame; pain”). Cognate with Dutch harm (“harm”), German Harm (“harm”), Danish harme (“indignation, resentment”), Icelandic harmur (“sorrow, grief”), Swedish harm (“anger, indignation, harm”).
Words formed from harm
- harmable
- harmdoing
- harmer
- harmful
- harmless
- harmproof
- nonharm
- self-harm
- unharmed
- actual bodily harm
- do more harm than good
- do no harm
- grievous bodily harm
- harm a fly
- harm a hair on someone's head
- harm principle
- harm reduction
- harm's way
- no harm done
- number needed to harm
- repeated bodily harm
- wouldn't harm a fly
Phrases with harm
Words that rhyme with harm
19 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about harm
- What does harm mean?
- Harm means physical injury; hurt; damage.
- What is harm in Hindi?
- Harm in Hindi is चोट (coṭ), घाव (ghāv), अपकार (apkār). See Harm meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is harm?
- Harm can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce harm?
- Harm is pronounced /hɑːm/ (UK).
- What is the plural of harm?
- The plural of harm is harms.
Words near harm in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: harm (page history and authors); ضرر (Urdu) (page history and authors); harm (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ہانی (Punjabi) (page history and authors); નુકસાન (Gujarati) (page history and authors); تاوان (Pashto) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-harm.wav, en-us-harm.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-harm.wav.
Cite this entry: “harm.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harm. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.