From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdetrimentaldet‧ri‧men‧tal /ˌdetrəˈmentl◂/ ●○○ adjective formal HARM/BE BAD FORcausing harm or damage SYN harmful, damagingdetrimental to Smoking is detrimental to your health. the detrimental effect of pollution on the environment► see thesaurus at harmful —detrimentally adverb
Examples from the Corpus
detrimental• In 15 of the 37 cases, strong stemming decreased precision, but the cross-referencing was never detrimental.• She added that any attempt to restrict the availability of parents could have a detrimental effect on children.• The application with the particularly detrimental effect on operators' jobs was the biscuit dough mixing automation.• At the same time, medical and social science research began to indicate that retirement itself had detrimental effects.• Long-acting drugs, like many sleeping pills, are especially detrimental to the elderly.• However, too much or little anxiety will always affect any performance in a detrimental way.detrimental to• Smoking is detrimental to your health. 