What does harm mean?
Harm names the damage, injury, or impairment suffered by a person, animal, object, or environment, and it can also function as a verb meaning to cause that damage. The word is used across everyday, legal, medical, and moral contexts: physical harm concerns injury or illness, while psychological or social harm refers to damaging effects on a person’s emotions, relationships, or well-being. The phrase do harm is especially common and can describe either concrete injury or moral wrongdoing. Although harm usually suggests a real and consequential effect, it is sometimes used more generally for disruption, inconvenience, or the possibility of damage. The related adjective harmful describes a person, action, or thing capable of causing harm, while harmless means causing no harm. Together, these forms make harm a central word for discussing consequences, risk, safety, and responsibility.
Damage, injury, impairment, or other adverse effect suffered by a person, animal, object, or situation.
"The new safety rules were designed to prevent harm to workers."
Harm can be countable or uncountable. It often carries a serious or morally significant connotation.
To cause damage, injury, impairment, or another adverse effect.
"Excessive screen time may harm a child’s sleep."
The verb is transitive in its usual use, although it can also occur in constructions such as “it harms no one.”
Harm is usually uncountable, but the plural harms is used when referring to several distinct injuries, disadvantages, or adverse effects.
"The report documented several harms caused by the policy."
The word’s Germanic relatives, including German Harm and Dutch harm, preserve the same core idea of injury and damage.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does harm come from?
The English word harm comes from Old English harm, which already meant hurt, damage, or injury. It continued into Middle English and modern English with a broadly similar range of meanings. Its relatives include German Harm and Dutch harm, showing its Germanic inheritance; the exact deeper prehistoric origin is not securely established.
Related word forms
How harm is actually used
Harm is common in formal and informal English. It can describe physical injury, damage to property or institutions, and moral or social injury; in legal and medical contexts, it often has a more specific meaning, as in bodily harm or serious harm.