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harm

noun · verb

Simple meaning

Any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

hahrm
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈhɑɹm

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. Any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc.

  2. Physical injury; hurt; damage.

  3. That which causes injury, damage, or loss.

  4. Emotional or figurative hurt.

  5. Detriment; misfortune.

verb

  1. To damage, hurt, or injure something, usually an inanimate object.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
General English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Any physical damage to the body caused by violence or accident or fracture etc.

Used this way, harm is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Blunt and forceful

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use harm

  • “These pills won't harm your system.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Physical / causes

physical harmharm caused

Other combinations

great harmcause harmserious harm

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • harmfuladjectiveDerived adjective

    Causing or capable of causing harm.

  • harmlessadjectiveDerived adjective

    Not causing or capable of causing harm.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: any physical damage to the body caused by violence

traumainjury

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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.