deleterious
adjective
Simple meaning
Harmful, often in a subtle or unexpected way.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dehluhtihreeuhsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɛləˈtɪɹiəs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
formal
Harmful, often in a subtle or unexpected way.
genetics
Having lower fitness.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (formal) Harmful, often in a subtle or unexpected way.
Used this way, deleterious is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It turns up most in academic writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Formal
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Where it naturally appears
- Academic writing
Usage note
Comfortable in writing and prepared speech; in casual conversation a shorter everyday word usually sounds more natural.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.