prejudicial
adjective
Simple meaning
Causing harm or injury.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
prehjuhdishuhlSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
pɹɛdʒəˈdɪʃəl
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
Causing harm or injury; detrimental, harmful or injurious.
law
Tending to convince based on past history rather than on evidence about the case at hand.
Exhibiting prejudice or bias.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Uncommon
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Causing harm or injury; detrimental, harmful or injurious.
Used this way, prejudicial is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use prejudicial
- “The presence of discriminatory or prejudicial attitudes in the white population.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Causing damage or harm.
Causing or capable of causing harm.
Causing damage; harmful, injurious.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.