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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

harm.

Physical injury; hurt; damage.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/hɑːm/Received-Pronunciation/hɑɹm/Canada, General-American/hɐːm/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Physical injury; hurt; damage.

    countable · uncountable
    No harm came to my possessions.
    You can do a lot of harm to someone if you kick them in the teeth.
  2. Emotional or figurative hurt.

    countable · uncountable
    Although not physically injured in the car accident, she received some psychological harm.
  3. Detriment; misfortune.

    countable · uncountable
    I wish him no harm.
  4. That which causes injury, damage, or loss.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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”).

verb/hɑːm/Received-Pronunciation/hɑɹm/Canada, General-American/hɐːm/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. To damage, hurt, or injure something, usually an inanimate object.

Where this word comes from

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”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.