Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Having a harmful effect; injurious: the deleterious effects of smoking.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Having the quality of destroying life; noxious; poisonous: as, a deleterious plant.
- Hurtful in character or quality; injurious; pernicious; mischievous; unwholesome: as, a deleterious practice; deleterious food.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Hurtful; noxious; destructive; pernicious.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. harmful to living things
Etymologies
- From Greek dēlētērios, from dēlētēr, destroyer, from dēleisthai, to harm.
Examples
“Having publicly deprecated the impact of fiscal policy and warned of the long term deleterious effects of climbing public debt, of course, the Federal Reserve and/or the Bank of England cannot now reverse course and credibly back more fiscal stimulus.”
The Huffington Post: Marshall Auerback: Welcome to the World of the "New Normal," UK Style
“And there are plenty of studies that show that punishment has long-term deleterious effects on children, whereas ....”
“But unfortunately, we've had a cycle of this and it doesn't stop the real problem, and that is simply that the Mexican government has a policy of avoiding domestic reform by exporting human capital at the rate of one or two million illegals a year, and it's in the long term deleterious for Mexico, because they don't face up to the problems they have for providing security and prosperity for their own people.”
“While much of this is understandable, there needs to be some stepping back so that there are no long-term deleterious results from this contretemps.”
“Set in 1974's Central America, in a war-weary time at the tail end of the Vietnam Conflict, Peace Walker will further explore the philosophical and political ramifications of war as commerce, as well as its longterm deleterious effects on society, the economy, and ourselves.”
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“The authors speculate that high calcium levels may be involved in processes that take a longer time to cause harm, such as the calcification of blood vessels or soft tissues, while low calcium levels may cause short-term deleterious effects such as heart rhythm abnormalities.”
“I firmly believe that his enlargement of government will create a drag on our future progress that will have long term deleterious effects on our well being.”
“Heavy-handed government intervention without regard for human dignity produces long-term deleterious effects.”
“Logging them would only disturb this process with long-term deleterious effects to the ecosystem.”
“The real critical issue that everyone is struggling with is, What about the potential long-term deleterious effects of ART that might override the beneficial effects?" says Fauci.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘deleterious’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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@vcb.etym.prjct - SAT Catchall
brainfood for my hungry, eager pupils
iconoclast, glacial, agnostic, histrionic, treacly, contemptuous, captious, bombastic, bombast, perfidy, quiescence, sordid and 148 more...
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Words I Used to Know
Words that make you go "I know that word...what the heck does it mean?!?
pulchritude, sanguine, trenchant, picaresque, gloaming, perfidious, confabulation, epiphany, importune, fulminate, efficacious, maladroit and 111 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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June Words
Words for June
connive, incessant, premeditated, malice, malicious, spite, vindictive, vindicate, vengeance, obstinately, assiduous, attentive and 14 more...
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starters
Random words, non-words
conunderer, phenomenology, vicissitudes, eugenics, hermaneutics, deconstruction, existential, mitlaufer, qubits, panpsychism, decoherence, analogous and 6 more...
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Interestingness

bilby Quite a musical word. You know, you get up on Saturday, throw a pancake against the wall, change into your blue tartan dress boxers, spin some Deleterious on the stereo while you sip lime coolers on the balcony and reflect that if the potplants haven't died already, not even you can kill them.
Surely can't be all that bad. Mar 12, 2009
seanahan I almost always here this in terms of mutations. Feb 2, 2008