harass

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French harasser (“to pester; to exhaust, tire out”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} recorded in French from 1527 in the sense "to pester", and in the sense "to exhaust" by 1583.^[2] The OED derives the French verb from harace (“chase, pursuit (in hunting)”), recorded from the 14th century, which it takes as probably formed from hare, a cry used to urge on the hounds, and -ace, a variant of the augmentative suffix -asse.^[2] Dictionary.com and the American Heritage Dictionary likewise start from harace, found in a hunting phrase meaning to pursue.^[7][8] Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and Merriam-Webster derive it instead from harer (“to set a dog on”), formed from the same cry,^{[9][6][10][5]} and the OED compares that verb too.^[2] The cry is of Germanic origin,^[5][10][11] akin to Old High German hara (“hither”) and hiar (“here”),^[5][10] and Dictionary.com traces it to Frankish *hara (“here, from this side”);^[7] Etymonline, following Watkins, takes the Frankish word from Proto-Germanic *hi-, from Proto-Indo-European *ko-, the stem of a demonstrative pronoun meaning "this".^[3][8] Klein calls the cry imitative.^[12] Barnhart suggests that the French verb may have blended with harier (“to harry, draw, drag”),^[4][3] and the OED compares harier (“to hassle”).^[2] The English word harry has a separate source, an ancient root meaning "army, host".^[13] Johnson derived the word from a French word for a heavy shield, following Du Cange.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To tire out or exhaust a person or animal, especially with physical effort: 1593, in Matthew Sutcliffe's book on the laws of arms.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the word to before 1618, in Raleigh, in the sense "to lay waste, devastate",^[4][3] and Merriam-Webster to 1617.^[5]

Semantic evolution

As the hunting origin suggests, the word at first had a much stronger meaning than it does today.^[15][10] In the early 17th century it was a military word: to make repeated attacks on an enemy (1612) and to lay waste a country in a raid (before 1618, obsolete after 1710).^[2] Barnhart dates the sense "to trouble by repeated attacks" to 1622.^[4] From 1649 a situation or event could be said to harass a person's mind,^[2] and Johnson (1755) defined the verb as "to weary; to fatigue".^[14] The sense "to tire out" died out in the early 19th century.^[2] The current sense, subjecting a person to persistent and unwarranted annoyance or intimidation, is recorded from 1788, in Mary Wollstonecraft,^[2] and Word Origins places the notion of intimidation in the 19th century and the prominence of sexual harassment in the 1970s.^[13] The noun harass, the action of harassing, is recorded from 1658,^[2] and Johnson quoted Milton's "the harass of their land";^[14] it is now archaic.^[5] In Lincolnshire and Surrey dialect a harass was a difficulty or great trouble.^[16] The noun harassment dates from 1753.^[17]

Timeline

• 1593 – to tire out, exhaust (obsolete after 1828).^[2]
• 1612 – to make repeated military attacks on.^[2] Barnhart dates "to trouble by repeated attacks" to 1622.^[4]
• before 1618 – to lay waste, devastate (obsolete after 1710).^[2][4]
• 1649 – of an event or situation, to trouble or distress a person.^[2]
• 1658 – noun, the action of harassing.^[2]
• 1753 – harassment.^[17]
• 1788 – to subject a person to unwarranted annoyance or intimidation.^[2]
• 1850 – in textiles, to abrade the surface of a fabric (obsolete after 1854).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To annoy, pressure or intimidate someone persistently, with repeated attacks, demands or unwanted attention: The landlord was accused of harassing his tenants.^[18][19][2]
2. To wear down an enemy with repeated attacks or raids.^[19][5][2]
3. Of a situation or event, to trouble or worry someone.^[2][5]
4. (obsolete, 1593–1828) To tire out or exhaust.^[2][19][5]
5. (obsolete) To lay waste or ravage a country in a raid.^[2][5]

Noun

1. (archaic) Harassment; worry.^[5][6][2]

Word family

• harasser
• harassment
• harassable
• harassingly
• overharass
• unharassed

Related words

• harry
• here
• hither

Usage notes

The American Heritage Dictionary found its Usage Panel evenly divided on the pronunciation: half preferred stress on the first syllable, half on the second.^[19] The OED quotes John Wells: the traditional British pronunciation stresses the first syllable, while /həˈras/, which began in the United States, was first heard in Britain in the 1970s, may come to predominate there, and is disliked by those who keep the older form.^[2] The American Heritage Dictionary groups harass with harry, hound, badger, pester, plague and bait, all meaning to trouble persistently.^[19] Of these, harass and harry suggest systematic persecution.^[19]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ Hendrickson, Robert (2008), The Facts on File Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, 4th ed., New York: Facts on File
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
17. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
18. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
19. ^ a b c d e f The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin