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Harm vs Enormity - What's the difference?

harm | enormity | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between harm and enormity

is that harm is injury; hurt; damage; detriment; misfortune while enormity is extreme wickedness, nefariousness.

As a verb harm

is to cause injury to another; to hurt; to cause damage to something.

harm

English

(wikipedia harm)

Noun

(en noun)
  • Injury; hurt; damage; detriment; misfortune.
  • * , chapter=13
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them. Soft heartedness caused more harm than good.}}
  • That which causes injury, damage, or loss.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • We, ignorant of ourselves, / Beg often our own harms .

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "harm": bodily, physical, environmental, emotional, financial, serious, irreparable, potential, long-term, short-term, permanent, lasting, material, substantial.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cause injury to another; to hurt; to cause damage to something.
  • Derived terms

    * do no harm * harmer * harmless * harm's way * self-harm * unharmed

    Anagrams

    * ----

    enormity

    English

    Noun

    (enormities)
  • (uncountable) Extreme wickedness, nefariousness.
  • Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot's oppression.
  • (countable) An act of extreme evil or wickedness.
  • (uncountable) Hugeness, enormousness, immenseness.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=May 13 , author=Alistair Magowan , title=Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Rooney and his team-mates started ponderously, as if sensing the enormity of the occasion, but once Scholes began to link with Ryan Giggs in the middle of the park, the visitors increased the tempo with Sunderland struggling to keep up.}}
  • * 2007 , Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon , Blue Bridge 2008, p. 103:
  • But the enormity of Clement's vision of papal grandeur only became clear once the public rooms were completed during the years that immediately followed.

    Usage notes

    * Enormity'' is frequently used as a synonym for "enormousness," rather than "great wickedness." This is frequently considered an error; the words have different roots in French, and radically different accepted meanings, although both trace back to the same Latin source word, ''enormis , meaning "deviating from the norm, abnormal."