harmless

[ hahrm-lis ]

adjective

1. without the power or desire to do harm; innocuous:

   He looks mean but he's harmless; a harmless Halloween prank.

   Synonyms: unobjectionable, benign, innocent, mild, inoffensive

2. without injury; unhurt; unharmed.

harmless

/ ˈhɑːmlɪs /

adjective

1. not causing any physical or mental damage or injury
2. unlikely to annoy or worry people

   a harmless sort of man

Derived Forms

• ˈharmlessly, adverb
• ˈharmlessness, noun

Other Words From

• harm·less·ly adverb
• harm·less·ness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of harmless¹

1250–1300; Middle English; harm, -less

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. hold harmless, Law. to relieve from responsibility or liability for any damage or loss. Also save harmless.

Example Sentences

J&J’s shot uses a cold virus like a Trojan horse to carry the spike gene into the body, where cells make harmless copies of the protein to prime the immune system in case the real virus comes along.

From Fortune

That’s likely also the case with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, which employs a harmless type of cold virus, to which a section of coronavirus is added.

From MIT Technology Review

Had it been five degrees lower, it would have been dry and relatively harmless.

From Washington Post

Jenner’s great advance was to use a related but relatively harmless virus.

From Time

Delete old appsIt may seem harmless to leave old apps kicking around on your phone or computer, but there are some downsides.

From Popular-Science

The motives were most always harmless, and only sometimes ethically questionable.

From The Daily Beast

Knowing the fellow to be both poor and harmless, I quietly gave him one.

From The Daily Beast

Of the over 100 strains, the majority are harmless and a healthy immune system will fight it without a person ever realizing it.

From The Daily Beast

A harmless woman is being harassed online by a nerdy subculture.

From The Daily Beast

Are you not defeating the cause by demonstrating violence in your response to a nonviolent, harmless kid?

From The Daily Beast

Y was a Youth, that did not love school; Z was a Zany, a poor harmless fool.

From Project Gutenberg

This harmless image of a fierce beast Yung Pak would pull about the floor with a string by the hour.

From Project Gutenberg

In some animals they are apparently harmless; in others they are an important cause of disease.

From Project Gutenberg

The motive of this harmless ruse was to bolster up Spanish prestige and thereby avoid bloodshed.

From Project Gutenberg

She tolerated, indeed she sometimes even smiled at the gallant captain's pleasantries, when they were of a harmless sort.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• gentle
• innocent
• innocuous
• inoffensive
• naive
• nontoxic
• painless
• powerless
• simple