evil
Forms
- Comparative
- eviller
- Superlative
- evillest
- Plural
- evils
Definitions
1.Intending to harm; malevolent.
- For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.
- He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians.
2.Morally corrupt.
- If something is evil, it is never mandatory.
- Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?
3.Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
- He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.
- Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.
4.Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
1.Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
- The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.
- The evils of society include murder and theft.
- Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.
2.Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
- The evil that men do lives after them.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2681
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂up(h₁)élos, a deverbal derivative of *h₂wep(h₁)-, *h₂wop(h₁)- (“treat badly”). See -le for the supposed suffix.