Make Your Point: DELETERIOUS

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pronounce DELETERIOUS:

dell uh TEER ee us

connect this word to others:

You might wonder if the words delete and deleterious are closely related. How could they not be? I mean, the word delete appears inside deleterious, and the meanings are so close, both indicating a type of destruction.

Well, allow me to ruin this excellent hypothesis with cold facts!

Delete comes from the Latin delinere, "to erase," and breaks down further into de- (away) and linere (to smear, or to wipe), and as such literally means "to wipe away, to smear away."

It's a different story for deleterious: it traces back through Latin the Greek dēlētēr, "destroyer."

That's a pretty subtle difference, right? Still, we wouldn't call the word deleting a synonym of deleterious. Deleterious is synonymous with words like harmful, destructive, injurious, ruinous, and d____m_ntal ("causing damage"). Can you recall that last one?

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)

definition:

Since the year 1587 or so, we've used the word "deleterious" in English.

It comes from a Greek word meaning "destroyer," and the meaning hasn't changed much: today, deleterious things are harmful or hurtful, causing a bad impact on something, especially on health.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Adjective: "We're all familiar with the deleterious effects of smoking."

Other forms:

Deleteriously, deleteriousness.

how to use it:

Pick the formal, common, serious word "deleterious" when you want to emphasize how something really destroys a person's health—or the health of a relationship, a company, the environment, etc.

We talk about the deleterious effects of something, or the deleterious impact of something.

That "something" is often a drug, an illness, or a terrible situation of any kind, such as a toxic relationship or an overly demanding job with inhumane working conditions.

examples:

"Sleeping pills, by the way, are to be avoided. Among other things, they can have a deleterious effect on memory."
— Rachel Cooke, The Guardian, 24 September 2017

"Aubrey de Grey... is an amply bearded British scientist with a multipronged strategy for combating the deleterious effects of aging."
— Nicolas Rapold, New York Times, 27 November 2014

has this page helped you understand "deleterious"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "deleterious" without saying "injurious" or "noxious."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(Some particular song, poem, book, show, or other piece of work) (captures or expresses) the deleterious effects of (something)."

Example: "Olivia Rodrigo's 'Jealousy, Jealousy' captures the deleterious effects of comparing yourself to other people on social media."

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game for this month is "The Tip of the Tongue!"

You know how sometimes you'll be reaching for a perfect word, and it's right there at the tip of your tongue, where you can almost taste it? Somehow that word is caught in the liminal space between your memory and your mouth. This month, let's play with that experience, and practice resolving it to our satisfaction.

I'll give you a short quote from Chris Palmer's heartfelt and eye-opening new book, Achieving a Good Death: A Practical Guide to the End of Life, along with a blank where Chris has deployed a truly perfect word. To help bring that word to the tip of your tongue, I'll describe it both physically and semantically.

Try this one today:

"Talking openly about death's _____ does not make it more likely to happen. Instead, it allows patients to complete their lives with grace, gratitude, and expressions of love and appreciation and focus on what matters to them."

The word is 7 syllables long, and it has a letter V near the beginning of it.

The word means "certainty," but more specifically, it means "the state of not being able to be avoided."

To reveal the right word, scroll to the bottom of the issue.

review this word:

1. The opposite of DELETERIOUS is

A. SOPORIFIC: causing sleepiness.
B. SEDENTARY: involving sitting down for a long time.
C. SALUTARY: wholesome, helpful, good for your health.

2. Joshua David Stein argued in The Guardian that eating red meat is "_____" and "deleterious for one's health."

A. deeply American
B. indisputably bad
C. almost indescribably pleasurable

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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