harmful

/ˈhɑrmfəl/

/ˈhɑmfəl/

Things that are harmful hurt people, or are likely to hurt them. Listening to loud music through headphones can be harmful to your hearing.

Harmful is an adjective that comes in handy when you're talking about things that cause injury to someone or damage something. Burning coal can be harmful to the environment, and eating too much candy can be harmful for your teeth. Harmful words can hurt someone's feelings and harmful actions might put them in danger. The Old English hearm, "hurt, evil, or grief," is at the root of harmful.

Definitions of harmful

1. adjective

   causing or capable of causing harm
   “too much sun is harmful to the skin”

   “harmful effects of smoking”

   synonyms:

   disadvantageous

   constituting a disadvantage

   malign

   evil or harmful in nature or influence

   destructive

   causing destruction or much damage

   abusive

   characterized by physical or psychological maltreatment

   bad

   capable of harming

   bruising

   causing mental or emotional injury

   deleterious, hurtful, injurious

   harmful to living things

   calumniatory, calumnious, defamatory, denigrating, denigrative, denigratory, libellous, libelous, slanderous

   (used of statements) harmful and often untrue; tending to discredit or malign

   catastrophic, ruinous

   extremely harmful; bringing physical or financial ruin

   counterproductive

   tending to hinder the achievement of a goal

   damaging, detrimental, inimical, prejudicial, prejudicious

   (sometimes followed by `to') causing harm or injury

   ill

   resulting in suffering or adversity

   insidious, pernicious, subtle

   working or spreading in a hidden and usually injurious way

   mischievous

   deliberately causing harm or damage

   nocent

   having a tendency to cause harm

   stabbing, wounding

   causing physical or especially psychological injury

   noxious

   injurious to physical or mental health

   offensive

   causing anger or annoyance

   painful

   causing physical or psychological pain

   toxic

   of or relating to or caused by a toxin or poison

   unwholesome

   detrimental to physical or moral well-being

   antonyms:

   harmless

   not causing or capable of causing harm

   benign, benignant

   pleasant and beneficial in nature or influence

   innocent, innocuous

   lacking intent or capacity to injure

   innocuous

   not injurious to physical or mental health

   painless

   not causing physical or psychological pain

   safe

   free from danger or the risk of harm

   atoxic, nontoxic

   not producing or resulting from poison