SYNONYMS AND RELATED EXPRESSIONS
detrimental
adjective
Causing harm or putting something at a disadvantage.
Local English device voice, when available. This is not a recorded dictionary pronunciation.
Harmful in effect
Closest synonyms
Related words and expressions
These extend or explain the idea and may require a different sentence structure.
Usage distinction
Return to topDeleterious is formal; prejudicial means harmful here, not necessarily influenced by prejudice.
CHECK THE MEANING IN CONTEXT
See detrimental in use
Repeated interruptions were detrimental to the team's concentration.
While testing a new reader poll, an editor accidentally allowed practice responses to contaminate the final results by mixing them with actual submissions. A separate problem caused an impairment of the editing system: a failed search function reduced the team's ability to find older files. Both difficulties were detrimental to the publication's work, but they required different responses.
Compare an alternative with the original word in each passage. Shared meanings do not make every pair interchangeable.
Synonym reference scope and sources
The groups distinguish the senses selected for this study entry. Closest synonyms and broader related expressions have separate labels. The listed sources support lexical selection; not every phrase is a direct quotation from a source.
How the synonym reference was prepared / WordNet 3.0 license