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While attempting to complete this quadrant contrasting/combining the meanings shown, I was unable to recognize a word that means, Falsely Harmful. There is no implied intentionality or morality here; false simply means not true, and harmful simply means not helpful/neutral. The determination of harmful and false is also not included in the word I'm looking for, so it could be understood, believed or unproven...it simply means, falsely harmful. enter image description here

Examples for the word I'm looking for include: she chose not to go on the date because of the {word} information she believed, or he was not only mislead believing it was helpful, he was also fed {word} information too.

I went looking for options with the help of the Reverse Dictionary as shown here, and the closest I could come up with is calumniate, but that includes intentionality, and I'm looking for a more universal meaning. You can see from the list of words, there is not one listed which simply means, falsely harmful.
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While misleading can apply to falsely helpful or harmful, I’m trying to distinguish between leading toward something helpful, and warning someone away from something harmful., If the word ‘miswarned’ existed, it would match the meaning, because the harm spoke or thought of was not true…there really was no danger. This applies to things like self-doubts that are not substantiated, and opting to do things out of fear, when the fears are either unfounded or simply don’t come to pass.

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    If 'falsely representing something as helpful' is misleading, so is 'falsely representing something as harmful, surely?
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Apr 3 at 18:38
  • @KateBunting we can be lead away from danger or toward something better depending on the perspective. For example, eating healthy will prolong your life, and not eating healthy will shorten your life. But the positive is more recognized as leading, whereas the negative is more recognized as warning. And if miswarning was a recognized word I'd use it...or perhaps we should neologize it!
    – Christopher
    Commented Apr 3 at 19:06
  • Are we talking a lie that causes harm, or a falsely claimed harm not so harmful for being false if there's such a thing? It should be the opposite of Valuable like Vicious.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Apr 3 at 19:15
  • I doubt whether there is one. Shakespeare wrote a play in which this was the intent of one of the characters, but the consequences were truly harmful. Answers on a postcard…
    – David
    Commented Apr 3 at 19:53
  • @YosefBaskin there is no moral intent included in the word, the same as valuable has none. In fact, it applies more to what people think about than what someone says or implies. For example, if I think it’s going to rain tomorrow (harmful) and cancel my outdoor plans and it actually does not rain (falsely harmful), it has nothing to do with what someone did. It could include blaming the weather forecast, but this word is morally indifferent…it simply is what it is.
    – Christopher
    Commented Apr 4 at 21:20

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The word you're looking for seems to be unwarranted. From wiktionary:

unwarranted (comparative more unwarranted, superlative most unwarranted)

  1. Not warranted; being without warrant, authority, or guaranty; unwarrantable.
  2. Unjustified, inappropriate or undeserved.

If something is falsely harmful, then that means the guaranteed negative consequences from said thing are causally disconnected, and therefore unwarranted meets both senses 1 & 2.

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  • there is no implied warrantee; in fact, this does not have to include anything anyone said, much less promised. To be clear, this word applies to any time we fear or avoid something harmful, from our perception alone, to anything someone wrote or told us, that is actually false, or does not come to pass. It's a false negative, not a false promise.
    – Christopher
    Commented Apr 8 at 2:06

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