harmfulness

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

English harmful

Proto-Germanic *-in-

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂

Proto-Indo-European *-éh₂

Proto-Indo-European *-yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂yéti

Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ti

Proto-Germanic *-ōną

Proto-Germanic *-inōną

Proto-Indo-European *-dyé-

Proto-Germanic *-atjaną

Proto-Indo-European *-tus

Proto-Germanic *-þuz

Proto-Germanic *-assuz

Proto-Germanic *-inassuz

Proto-West Germanic *-nassī

Old English -nes

Middle English -nesse

English -ness

English harmfulness

From harmful + -ness.

Noun

harmfulness (countable and uncountable, plural harmfulnesses)

1. The characteristic of being harmful.
   • 1922, Edith Wharton, chapter 8, in The Glimpses of the Moon:

     Once his word was pledged, he was safe: otherwise there was no limit to his capacity for wilful harmfulness.

Synonyms

• poisonousness

Antonyms

• harmlessness
• innocuousness

Translations

the characteristic of being harmful

• French: nocivité (fr) f
• German: Schädlichkeit (de)
• Irish: urchóideacht f
• Italian: nocività f, nocevolezza f
• Japanese: 有害 (ja) (yūgai)
• Latin: nocivum
• Portuguese: nocividade f
• Romanian: nocivitate (ro)
• Russian: вре́дность (ru) f (vrédnostʹ)
• Spanish: nocividad (es) f
• Turkish: zararlılık

References

• Noah Webster (1828), “harmfulness”, in An American Dictionary of the English Language: […], volume I (A–I), New York, N.Y.: […] S. Converse; printed by Hezekiah Howe […], →OCLC.
• “harmfulness”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.