Harm Once Meant Grief as Well as Injury
Harm is physical or other injury. The Old English word covered sorrow and insult too.
Harm is physical injury or damage of any kind. Old English *hearm* covered a wider range: injury, yes, but also grief, insult and evil generally. German *Harm* still means grief rather than damage, so the two languages kept different halves of one word. *First, do no harm* is universally attributed to the Hippocratic Oath but does not appear in it; the phrase comes from a separate Hippocratic text and reached English through Latin.
- Injury. *Serious harm.*
- To injure. *It harmed nobody.*
- Grief (archaic). *Hearm.*
- Harmless — causing no injury. *Harmless.*
- Old English — *hearm*. *The source.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | harm | Harm. |
| Verb | harm | Harming. |
| Adjective | harmful | Harmful. |
| Adjective | harmless | Harmless. |
| German | Harm | Grief. |
- No harm was done.Injury.
- It harms nobody.Verb.
- German Harm means grief.Comparison.
About first, do no harm
- It is not in the Hippocratic Oath
- The idea appears in a separate Hippocratic work on epidemics
- The Latin form *primum non nocere* is much later
- The oath itself does contain related undertakings
- The misattribution is repeated almost universally
Old English *hearm*, hurt, grief or evil, of Germanic origin, related to German *Harm*.
Is first, do no harm in the Hippocratic Oath?
No. The idea comes from a separate Hippocratic text, and the familiar Latin phrasing is much later.
Did harm always mean injury?
It also meant grief and insult. German kept the grief sense while English kept the injury one.