harm vs hurt what difference
what is difference between harm and hurt
English
Etymology
From Middle English harm, herm, from Old English hearm, from Proto-West Germanic *harm, from Proto-Germanic *harmaz (“harm; shame; pain”).
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /hɑɹm/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /hɑːm/
- Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)m
Noun
harm (countable and uncountable, plural harms)
- physical injury; hurt; damage
- emotional or figurative hurt
- detriment; misfortune.
- That which causes injury, damage, or loss.
Usage notes
- Adjectives often applied to “harm”: bodily, physical, environmental, emotional, financial, serious, irreparable, potential, long-term, short-term, permanent, lasting, material, substantial.
Translations
Verb
harm (third-person singular simple present harms, present participle harming, simple past and past participle harmed)
- To cause injury to another; to hurt; to cause damage to something.
Translations
Derived terms
Anagrams
- Hmar, mahr
Icelandic
Noun
harm
- indefinite accusative singular of harmur
Irish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈhaɾˠəmˠ/
Noun
harm
- h-prothesized form of arm
Middle English
Alternative forms
- harem, arme, herme
Etymology
From Old English hearm, from Proto-West Germanic *harm.
Noun
harm (plural harms)
- harm, injury, ruination
Descendants
- English: harm
- Scots: herm, hairm
- Yola: harrm
References
- “harm, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
Old Saxon
Etymology
From Proto-Germanic *harmaz.
Noun
harm m
- harm
Descendants
- Middle Low German: harm, herm
English
Etymology
From Middle English hurten, hirten, hertan (“to injure, scathe, knock together”), from Old Northern French hurter (“to ram into, strike, collide with”; > Modern French heurter), perhaps from Frankish *hūrt (“a battering ram”), from Proto-Germanic *hrūtaną, *hreutaną (“to fall, beat”), from Proto-Indo-European *krew- (“to fall, beat, smash, strike, break”); however, the earliest instances of the verb in Middle English are as old as those found in Old French, which leads to the possibility that the Middle English word may instead be a reflex of an unrecorded Old English *hȳrtan, which later merged with the Old French verb. Germanic cognates include Dutch horten (“to push against, strike”), Middle Low German hurten (“to run at, collide with”), Middle High German hurten (“to push, bump, attack, storm, invade”), Old Norse hrútr (“battering ram”).
Alternate etymology traces Old Northern French hurter rather to Old Norse hrútr (“ram (male sheep)”), lengthened-grade variant of hjǫrtr (“stag”), from Proto-Germanic *herutuz, *herutaz (“hart, male deer”), which would relate it to English hart (“male deer”). See hart.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) enPR: hû(r)t, IPA(key): /hɜːt/
- (General American) enPR: hûrt, IPA(key): /hɝt/
- Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)t
Verb
hurt (third-person singular simple present hurts, present participle hurting, simple past and past participle hurt)
- (transitive, intransitive) To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury.
- (transitive, intransitive) To cause (somebody) emotional pain.
- He was deeply hurt he hadn’t been invited.
- The insult hurt.
- (intransitive) To be painful.
- (transitive, intransitive) To damage, harm, impair, undermine, impede.
- Copying and pasting identical portions of source code hurts maintainability, because the programmer has to keep all those copies synchronized.
- Every little hurts.
Synonyms
- (to be painful): smart
- (to cause physical pain and/or injury): wound, injure, dere
Derived terms
- hurtle
- wouldn’t hurt a fly
Translations
See also
- ache
Adjective
hurt (comparative more hurt, superlative most hurt)
- Wounded, physically injured.
- Pained.
Synonyms
- (wounded): imbrued, injured, wounded; see also Thesaurus:wounded
- (pained): aching, sore, suffering
Translations
Noun
hurt (plural hurts)
- An emotional or psychological humiliation or bad experience.
- (archaic) A bodily injury causing pain; a wound or bruise.
- 1605, Shakespeare, King Lear vii
- I have received a hurt.
- The cause is a temperate conglutination ; for both bodies are clammy and viscous , and do bridle the deflux of humours to the hurts , without penning them in too much
- The pains of sickness and hurts […] all men feel.
- 1605, Shakespeare, King Lear vii
- (archaic) injury; damage; detriment; harm
- (heraldry) A roundel azure (blue circular spot).
- (engineering) A band on a trip-hammer helve, bearing the trunnions.
- A husk.
Translations
Related terms
- hurty
References
Anagrams
- Ruth, Thur, ruth, thru, thur
German
Verb
hurt
- inflection of huren:
- third-person singular present
- second-person plural present
- plural imperative
Polish
Etymology
From Middle High German hurt.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /xurt/
Noun
hurt m inan
- wholesale
Declension
Derived terms
- (adjective) hurtowy
- (nouns) hurtownia, hurtownik
Further reading
- hurt in Polish dictionaries at PWN