The Only Use of
deleterious
in
The Ransom of Red Chief
- It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.†
undeleterious = not harmfulstandard prefix: The prefix "un-" in undeleterious means not and reverses the meaning of deleterious. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
Definition:
harmful -- often in a subtle way