harmless
UK/ˈhɑːmləs//ˈhɑɹmləs/
harmless adjective: incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.
Adjective
harmless (comparative more harmless, superlative most harmless)
- Incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.
- Near-synonyms: benign, innocuous, innocent, undamaging, nonthreatening, unthreatening
- This snake looks nearly the same as its poisonous cousin but is harmless.
- Synonyms:
- unharmful, nonharmful, benign, innocuous, innocent, undamaging, nonthreatening, unthreatening
- Antonyms:
- harmful, deleterious, damaging, threatening
- Not intended to harm; inoffensive.
- His humor can be annoying but is harmless.
- The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.[…]Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
- Unharmed.
- Synonyms:
- unscathed
harmless meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
harmless in Hindi
- हानिरहित
harmless in Tamil
- ஊறு விளைக்காத, தீங்கற்ற
harmless in Marathi
- हानिरहित
harmless in Urdu
- harmless, innoxious
- بے ضرر be-zarar
More languagesFewer languages
- harmless in Bengali
- নির্দোষ nirdōś
- harmless in Telugu
- అనపాయము anapāyamu
- harmless in Malayalam
- പാവം pāvaṁ
- harmless in Kannada
- ತೊಂದರೆಯಿಲ್ಲದ, ಕೆಡುಕಿಲ್ಲದ, ತೊಂದರೆ ಮಾಡದ, ನಿರುಪದ್ರವಿ
- harmless in Punjabi
- ਨੁਕਸਾਨ ਰਹਿਤ
- harmless in Gujarati
- હાનિરહિત
- harmless in Nepali
- हानिरहित
- harmless in Vietnamese
- vô hại
Examples of harmless in a sentence
- While highly poisonous to dogs, this substance is completely harmless if ingested by humans.
- A dust devil may look harmless, but a large one can overturn a car.
- Donny’s obsession for trains is just a harmless particularity of his.
Synonyms of harmless
Antonyms
Forms of harmless
| comparative | more harmless |
|---|---|
| superlative | most harmless |
Origin of harmless
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”).
Words formed from harmless
Questions about harmless
- What does harmless mean?
- Harmless means incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.
- What is harmless in Hindi?
- Harmless in Hindi is हानिरहित. See Harmless meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is harmless?
- Harmless is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce harmless?
- Harmless is pronounced /ˈhɑːmləs/ (UK).
Words near harmless in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: harmless (page history and authors); harmless (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harmless (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harmless (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); بے ضرر (Urdu) (page history and authors); নির্দোষ (Bengali) (page history and authors); అనపాయము (Telugu) (page history and authors); പാവം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); harmless (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); harmless (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harmless (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); harmless (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: en-us-harmless.ogg.
Cite this entry: “harmless.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harmless. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.