喜樂美語

From the word’s history

From Middle English harmles, from Old English *hearmlēas, from Proto-Germanic *harmalausaz; harm + -less.

源自古英文 *hearmlēas「無害的」，就是 harm 加上 -less。

Wiktionary

Picture something that simply has nothing inside it that can hurt you. It may look or sound loud — a snake behind glass, a huge dog that only wags its tail, a machine that rattles — but if you let it come close, nothing happens. The threat is empty. That emptiness of danger is what the word keeps pointing at, whether the danger would be to your body or only to your feelings.

可以想成一樣東西身上根本沒有能傷人的部分：牙齒咬不動、刀是塑膠做的、聲音很大但碰到你也不痛。它也許長得嚇人、聽起來危險，可是真的靠近了，什麼事都不會發生——威脅是空的。這個「空掉的威脅」可以套在身體上（不會受傷），也可以套在心情上（不會被冒犯），是同一個畫面換了場地。

同家族的字

原始詞典資料3 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

harmlessadj/ˈhɑːmləs/

  • 1

    Incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.

    • Near-synonyms: benign, innocuous, innocent, undamaging, nonthreatening, unthreatening
    • This snake looks nearly the same as its poisonous cousin but is harmless.
  • 2

    Not intended to harm; inoffensive.

    • His humor can be annoying but is harmless.
    • The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.[…]Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?
  • 3

    obsoleteUnharmed.

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。