hurtful
/ˈhɜːtfʊl/US/ˈhɜɹtfʊl/
hurtful adjective: tending to impair or damage; injurious; occasioning loss or injury.
Adjective
hurtful (comparative more hurtful, superlative most hurtful)
- Tending to impair or damage; injurious; occasioning loss or injury.
- A good principle not rightly understood may prove as hurtful as a bad.1649, John Milton, Eikonoklastes
- Well-cultivated soils are often healthy; nor at present has it been proved that the use of manure is hurtful.1890, George Henry Rohé, Text-book of hygiene
- Synonyms:
- pernicious, harmful, damaging, deleterious, detrimental, inimical, injurious, mischievous, nocent, nocuous
- Tending to hurt someone's feelings; insulting; lacerating.
- Both men and women can be emotionally abusive. Even in the healthiest relationships, people occasionally reach down into their personal bags of known remembrances, past disagreements, and unresolved issues, and fling hurtful comments at their partners.2000, Michael Paymar, Violent No More
- Better yet, maybe she should call and apologize for all of the rude comments she spewed in the midst of her anger—hurtful comments that should never be spoken between a wife and her husband.2006, Ryan Phillips, Fall from Grace
hurtful meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
hurtful in Hindi
- tending to impair or damage
- हानिकारक hānikārak, अपकारी apkārī, अहितकर ahitkar
hurtful in Tamil
- புண்படுத்தும்
hurtful in Urdu
- hurtful, harmful, injurious
- مضر muzir
hurtful in Bengali
- আঘাতজনক
More languagesFewer languages
- hurtful in Malayalam
- മുറിപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന, ക്ഷതപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന, വേദനാജനകമായ, ക്ഷതമേല്പിക്കുന്ന
- hurtful in Kannada
- ನೋಯಿಸುವ, ತೊಂದರೆಪಡಿಸುವ, ಕೆಡುಕು ಮಾಡುವ
- hurtful in Odia
- ଆଘାତଦାଯ଼କ
- hurtful in Sanskrit
- हिंस्र hiṃsra
Examples of hurtful in a sentence
- Why would you say something so hurtful? God, you are such a stirrer!
- He doesn't realise how hurtful his offhand remarks can be.
- Q: Why would you say such a hurtful thing that you can’t take back? A: I was just kidding.
Synonyms of hurtful
Forms of hurtful
| comparative | more hurtful |
|---|---|
| superlative | most hurtful |
| alternative form (archaic) | hurtfull |
Origin of hurtful
From hurt + -ful.
Words formed from hurtful
Questions about hurtful
- What does hurtful mean?
- Hurtful means tending to impair or damage; injurious; occasioning loss or injury.
- What is hurtful in Hindi?
- Hurtful in Hindi is हानिकारक (hānikārak), अपकारी (apkārī), अहितकर (ahitkar). See Hurtful meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is hurtful?
- Hurtful is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce hurtful?
- Hurtful is pronounced /ˈhɜːtfʊl/ (UK).
Words near hurtful in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hurtful (page history and authors); hurtful (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); مضر (Urdu) (page history and authors); hurtful (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); hurtful (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); hurtful (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hurtful (Odia, 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hurtful.wav.
Cite this entry: “hurtful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hurtful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.