Word.ws English Dictionary

harsh

UK/ˈhɑːʃ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈhäːʃ/

harsh adjective: unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.

Adjective

harsh (comparative harsher or more harsh, superlative harshest or most harsh)

  1. Unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
  2. Severe or cruel.
    • harsh decision
    • harsh penalty
    Antonyms:
    easy, genteel

Verb

harsh (third-person singular simple present harshes, present participle harshing, simple past and past participle harshed)

  1. (ambitransitive, slang) To negatively criticize.
    • Quit harshing me already, I said that I was sorry!
    • Stop harshing on yourself. Who said you're the ugly sister?2008, An Na, The Fold
  2. (ambitransitive, slang) To put a damper on (a mood).
    • Dude, you're harshing my buzz.
    • They're always harshing on the plan, but we're still going through with it.

Proper noun capitalized: Harsh

Harsh (plural Harshes)

  1. A surname.

harsh meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

harsh in Hindi

severe or cruel
क्रूर krūr

harsh in Tamil

இனிமையற்ற, இன்னாத, உறுத்தலான, கடுமையான

harsh in Marathi

harsh, grating
कर्कश karkaś

harsh in Urdu

harsh
کٹھور kaṭhōr, پرش paruś
harsh, coarse
کڑوا kaṛvā
More languagesFewer languages
harsh in Bengali
কঠোর koṭhōr
harsh in Telugu
పరుషము paruṣamu, వెగటు vegaṭu, ప్రతికూలము pratikūlamu
harsh in Malayalam
പരുഷ paruṣa, പരുപരുത്ത paruparutta
harsh in Kannada
ಒರಟಾದ, ಬಿರುಸಾದ, ಗಡುಸಾದ, ಕಟುವಾದ
harsh in Punjabi
ਕੌੜਾ kauṛā
harsh in Gujarati
કઠોર
harsh in Sanskrit
दारुण dāruṇa
harsh in Indonesian
kasar
harsh in Persian
زمخت zomoxt

Examples of harsh in a sentence

  • Great news for City, but the result was harsh on Neil Warnock's side who gave as good as they got even though the odds were stacked against them.2011 November 5, Phil Dawkes, “QPR 2 - 3 Man City”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 18 Mar 2017:
  • “Stop harshing on me, Daddy.” “Harshing?” “Don't yell at me.2009, Richard Powers, Gain:
  • On their third date, Lizzie had actually said to him, "You're sort of harshing my mellow." It made him wonder if she might be stupid, and not just young.1999, Kurt Andersen, Turn of the century, page 508:
  • "Getting back to the issue of the child," Tina said, harshing our buzz as usual, "I really think you should reconsider...."2006, MaryJanice Davidson, Undead and Unpopular, page 776:

All 40 example sentences with harsh

Synonyms of harsh

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of harsh

Forms of harsh

Adjective
comparativeharsher
comparativemore harsh
superlativeharshest
superlativemost harsh
Verb
third-person singular presentharshes
present participleharshing
past participleharshed
pastharshed
Proper noun
pluralHarshes

Origin of harsh

From Middle English harsk, harisk(e), hask(e), herris. Century derived the term from Old Norse harskr (whence Danish harsk (“rancid”), dialectal Norwegian hersk, Swedish härsk, Swedish härsken); the Middle English Dictionary derives it from that and Middle Low German harsch (“rough”, literally “hairy”) (whence also German harsch), from haer (“hair”), from Old Saxon hār, from Proto-West Germanic *hār; the Oxford Dictionary of English derives it from Middle Low German alone.

From the German surname, Americanized from Harsch, from the adjective harsch.

Words formed from harsh

Phrases with harsh

Words that rhyme with harsh

Questions about harsh

What does harsh mean?
Harsh means unpleasantly rough to the touch or other senses.
What is harsh in Hindi?
Harsh in Hindi is क्रूर (krūr). See Harsh meaning in Hindi.
How do you use harsh in a sentence?
Great news for City, but the result was harsh on Neil Warnock's side who gave as good as they got even though the odds were stacked against them.
What part of speech is harsh?
Harsh can be an adjective, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce harsh?
Harsh is pronounced /ˈhɑːʃ/ (UK).

Words near harsh in the dictionary

  1. Harrymort
  2. hars
  3. harse
  4. Harsefeld
  5. harses
  6. harsh
  7. harsh down
  8. harsh Indian paintbrush
  9. harsh mistress
  10. harsh mistresses
  11. harsh noise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harsh (page history and authors); Harsh (page history and authors); harsh (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); कर्कश (Marathi) (page history and authors); پرش (Urdu) (page history and authors); কঠোর (Bengali) (page history and authors); పరుషము (Telugu) (page history and authors); പരുപരുത്ത (Malayalam) (page history and authors); harsh (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ਕੌੜਾ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); harsh (Gujarati, 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-harsh.ogg.

Cite this entry: “harsh.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/harsh. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.