harmless

From Middle English harmles, from Old English *hearmlēas, from Proto-Germanic *harmalausaz (“without harm; harmless”), equivalent to harm +‎ -less.

Cognate with German harmlos (“harmless”), Danish harmløs (“harlmess”), Swedish harmlös (“harmless”).

harmless (comparative more harmless, superlative most harmless)

Incapable of causing harm or danger; safe.
Synonyms: unharmful, nonharmful

Antonyms: harmful, deleterious, damaging, threatening

Near-synonyms: benign, innocuous, innocent, undamaging, nonthreatening, unthreatening

This snake looks nearly the same as its poisonous cousin but is harmless.
Not intended to harm; inoffensive.
His humor can be annoying but is harmless.
- 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
  The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite. […] Can those harmless but refined fellow-diners be the selfish cads whose gluttony and personal appearance so raised your contemptuous wrath on your arrival?
(obsolete) Unharmed.
Synonym: unscathed

incapable of causing harm or danger