- the act of causing harm or damage; something that causes harm or damage
- Wood accounts for 90% of energy production in some countries, with consequent environmental detriment.
- Too many tests are a detriment to good education.
Word Originlate Middle English in the sense ‘loss sustained by damage’: from Old French, from Latin detrimentum, from detri-, stem of deterere ‘wear away’.Definitions on the go
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Idioms
See detriment in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee detriment in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishto the detriment of somebody/something | to somebody's/something’s detriment
- resulting in harm or damage to somebody/something
- He was engrossed in his job to the detriment of his health.
without detriment (to somebody/something)
- not resulting in harm or damage to somebody/something
- This tax cannot be introduced without detriment to people’s living standards.
Check pronunciation:
detriment