detriment
Americannoun
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loss, damage, disadvantage, or injury.
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a cause of loss or damage.
noun
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disadvantage or damage; harm; loss
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a cause of disadvantage or damage
Synonym Usage
See damage.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of detriment
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English from Middle French, from Latin dētrīmentum “loss, damage,” from dētrī- ( see detritus) + -mentum -ment
Explanation
Detriment is the hurt or harm as a result of damage, loss, or a bad decision. The developers won the lawsuit, much to the detriment of the people who live near the construction site. The meaning of detriment has not changed much from its roots in the Latin word, detrimentum, which is "a rubbing off, loss, damage, defeat." A detriment is a loss that wears you down. Smoking is a detriment to good health, as is standing in the snow barefooted. To the detriment of the people who clean the floors, we gave the girls scrambled eggs right before gymnastics class.
Vocabulary lists containing detriment
The Book Thief
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Tears of a Tiger
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Britain's Finest Hour Speech - Winston Churchill (1940)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Whereas many Persons are so unfortunate as to lose their Fore Teeth by Accident or Otherways to their great Detriment not only in looks but in speaking both in public and private.
From Customs and Fashions in Old New England by Earle, Alice Morse
I do abstain, but grumblingly, and to my great Detriment too.
From Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. by Erasmus, Desiderius
Becoming Great to the Detriment of History.—Every later master who leads the taste of art-lovers into his channel unconsciously gives rise to a selection and revaluation of the older masters and their works.
From Human, All-Too-Human, Part II by Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
The Portion, which Nature gave me, proves now my Detriment; my Beauty is an Obstacle to my Marriage; an honest Shop-keeper cannot keep a Wife to look upon.
As these Men deserve well of your Office, so such as act to the Detriment of our Health, you ought to represent to themselves and their Fellow-Subjects in the Colours which they deserve to wear.
From The Spectator, Volume 2. by Addison, Joseph
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
