Harmless

How to spell harmless

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce harmless

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does harmless mean?

1. adjectiveUnable or unlikely to cause hurt, injury, or damage.

Harmless in a sentence

• The spider looks frightening but is completely harmless.

• The prank was meant to be a bit of harmless fun.

Where does harmless come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is built from two native English parts. The root is 'harm', which descends from the Old English noun 'hearm', meaning 'hurt, injury, or grief', a word shared with related Germanic tongues such as Old High German 'harm' and Old Norse 'harmr', where it could carry the sense of sorrow as well as bodily damage. The ending '-less' comes from the Old English '-leas', meaning 'free from' or 'without', the same lifeless ending you see in 'fearless' and 'careless'. Joined together, the parts literally describe something 'without harm', and the compound is recorded in English from the medieval period onward. The spelling stays transparent because both pieces are everyday English; the only trap is remembering that '-less' carries a double 's', not a single one.

How the word is built

• harm (from Old English hearm: injury, hurt)
• -less (Old English -leas: without, free from)