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# harmless

«harmless» in Mova's school dictionary: **not able to hurt or damage anyone or anything** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

adjective (harmless); adverb harmlessly

### meaning for a pupil

1) Harmless means not able to hurt or damage anyone or anything. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#m1)

2) Harmless can mean not meant to upset anyone: harmless fun. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In nature lessons many creatures look scary but are harmless, like most spiders in the UK, grass snakes and slow-worms; others look harmless but are dangerous, so you don't touch wild animals or plants you don't know. In lessons about tricks and teasing, a joke is harmless only if nobody is hurt or upset. In science, «harmless» bacteria do not cause illness. Phrases: harmless fun, completely harmless, perfectly harmless.

### examples

- That spider is harmless; it won't hurt you. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x1)
- It was just harmless fun, and everyone laughed. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x2)
- Most bacteria are harmless. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x3)
- A grass snake is harmless to people. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x4)
- Some berries look harmless but are poisonous. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x5)
- The dog looks fierce but it's really harmless. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x6)
- A joke isn't harmless if it makes someone cry. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x7)
- The firework fell harmlessly into the water. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x8)
- There she is as harmless as a lamb. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/#x9)

### note

Built from «harm» + «-less» (without harm). Opposite: harmful, dangerous. Trap: something looking harmless does not prove it is safe; ask an adult before touching unknown animals, plants, mushrooms or liquids.

### In the corpora

- [Grown-ups love swapping it over the fence, and a lot of it is harmless fun.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/41-our-street-who-parked-where-and-who-won-what/1/)
- [Exaggeration that everyone knows is a joke, like lights «seen from space», is harmless fun.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/adult-life/42-our-street-feuds-newcomers-and-stories-that-grow/12/)
- [When researchers sprayed a harmless mist into single canopy trees, beetles of hundreds of kinds fell out, many never named.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/156-the-amazon-canopy/15/)
- [Tiny harmless mites live in the roots of the eyelashes of most adults.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/355-hair-growing-curly-and-straight-eyebrows-eyelashes-and-going-grey/11/)
- [The sudden jerk as you fall asleep is a common, harmless muscle twitch, and nobody is sure why it happens.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/363-sleep-and-dreams-in-people/15/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «harmless» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/H/harmless/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.