bad
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /bæd/
ipa: /bæːd/
ipa: /bɛd/
ipa: /baːd/
note: æ-tensing, New York City, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Baltimore
ipa: /bɛəd/
rhymes: -æd
homophone: bade (one pronunciation)
Forms: form: badder
form: more bad
form: baddest
form: most bad
Etymology: From Middle English bad, badde (“wicked, evil, depraved”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a shortening of Old English bæddel (“hermaphrodite”) (for loss of -el compare Middle English muche from Old English myċel, and Middle English wenche from Old English wenċel), or at least related to it and/or to bǣ̆dan (“to defile”), compare Old High German pad (“hermaphrodite”).
Alternatively, perhaps a loan from Old Norse into Middle English, compare Norwegian bad (“effort, trouble, fear”, neuter noun), East Danish bad (“damage, destruction, fight”, neuter noun), from the Proto-Germanic noun *badą, whence also Proto-Germanic *badōną (“to frighten”), Old Saxon undarbadōn (“to frighten”), Norwegian Nynorsk bada (“to weigh down, press”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to bend, press, push, oppress”).
Senses: examples: text: He's the baddest guy in town!
synonyms: word: badass
word: adventurous
word: aweless
word: bad
word: bold
word: brass-balled
word: chivalrous
word: courageous
word: daredevil
word: daring
word: dauntless
word: doughty
word: fearless
word: fortitudinous
word: gallant
word: gutsy
word: heroic
word: intrepid
word: lionhearted
word: orped
word: plucky
word: stalwart
word: stalworth
word: stouthearted
word: unafraid
word: undaunted
word: valiant
word: valorous
word: venturesome
glosses: Bold, daring, and tough.
examples: text: Man, that new car you bought is bad!
text: You is bad, man!
text: He's the big bad wolf in your neighborhood / not bad meaning bad, but bad meaning good
ref: 1986, Darryl McDaniels, Joseph Simmons, “Peter Piper”, in Raising Hell, performed by Run-DMC:
text: Man, that bitch was bad—it was the best piece of pussy that I ever had.
ref: 1994, “Best Ever” (track 7), in N2Deep (lyrics), 24-7-365:
synonyms: word: acceptable
word: agreeable
word: all right
word: as fine as Dick's hatband
word: awesome
word: bene
word: bodacious
word: bona
word: commendable
word: dandy as candy
word: decent
word: enjoyable
word: excellent
word: exceptional
word: fantastic
word: fine
word: goloptious
word: good as wheat in the bin
word: gratifying
word: great
word: magnificent
word: marvelous
word: nice
word: not bad
word: outstanding
word: perfect
word: phenomenal
word: pleasant
word: pleasing
word: positive
word: rad
word: radical
word: right as rain
word: satisfying
word: splendid
word: stellar
word: stupendous
word: super
word: superb
word: sweet as a nut
word: terrific
word: tubular
word: wonderful
word: wondrous
qualifier: semantic change
glosses: Good, superlative, excellent, cool.
examples: text: You leave your girl around me; if she's bad she's gonna get stuck.
ref: 2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), Most Known Unknown, performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG), Sony BMG:
synonyms: word: abandoned
word: fast
word: lascivious
word: lewd
word: libidinous
word: licentious
word: loose
word: lustful
word: lusty
word: promiscuous
word: riggish
word: slack
word: unchaste
word: wanton
word: wappened
glosses: Overly promiscuous, licentious.
examples: text: Hopefully I can pull some bad bitches tonight.
glosses: Very attractive; hot, sexy.
raw_tags: of a woman
examples: text: Orange Man bad
text: "don't buy chinese games because china bad!!" folks I have good news about a little country called the United States of America
ref: 2020 October 7, @morkitten, Twitter, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024:
text: fake reddit moment, he's on tiktok and we all know tiktok bad 😤😤😤
ref: 2020 October 11, u/EarthToAccess, “Sad moment right here”, in Reddit, r/redditmoment, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024:
text: These kind of people only hate the Iraq invasion cuz "USA bad". Not because they truly care about Iraqi's.
ref: 2023 January 24, u/ThunderEagle222, “"NATO doesn't win because it has better technology! They only win because their technology is better!"”, in Reddit, r/NonCredibleDefense, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024:
text: -now everyone says it was "never good" because "popular thing bad" and now you're not allowed to like it anymore because it is now against the unspoken social rules thats fucking so great I hate that this happens to everything I like
ref: 2023 March 21, @SpectrVolcarona, Twitter, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024:
text: Ok well since it's been a thing for like 1.5 decades now, do you think you could give us a clue? ¶ FDA. Nope. Vape bad. You figure it out yourself.
ref: 2023 November 28, u/zeptillian, “This super popular disposable vape device is basically just a tampon soaked in nicotine juice that gets zapped by a small battery to produce vapor.”, in Reddit, r/mildlyinteresting, archived from the original on 03 Apr 2024:
glosses: Used without a copula to mock people who oppose something without having any real understanding of it.
examples: text: That boy is the baddest!
text: She's the baddest girl!
qualifier: "bad girl"; and similar phrases; "bad girl"; and similar phrases
glosses: Attractive due to (one's) rebellious nature.
raw_tags: in "bad boy"
Synonyms: word: abysmal
word: awful
word: chronic
word: coarse
word: crap
word: crummy
word: dire
word: disagreeable
word: dismal
word: dreadful
word: foul
word: hideous
word: hopeless
word: horrendous
word: horrid
word: horrible
word: inadequate
word: incompetent
word: inelegant
word: intolerable
word: inferior
word: loathsome
word: lousy
word: miserable
word: naff
word: negative
word: odious
word: pathetic
word: peak
word: rotten
word: rubbish
word: shitawful
word: sloppy
word: terrible
word: unfavorable
Hyponyms: word: low-quality
word: harmful
word: lamentable
word: evil
Derived terms: a bad penny always comes back
a bad penny always turns up
a bad tree does not yield good apples
a bad workman always blames his tools
bad actor
bad aji
bad apple
bad appling
badarse
bad ass
bad-ass
bad-assery
bad-assness
Bad Axe
bad baby
bad bank
bad beat
bad belle
bad bishop
bad bitch
bad blood
bad books
bad-boy
bad boy
bad breath
bad business
badbye
bad cess
bad check
bad cholesterol
bad comes to worse
bad comes to worst
bad company
bad conscience
bad debt
badden
baddie
baddish
bad egg
Badelaide
bad ending
bad eye
bad facts make bad law
bad faith
bad feeling
badfic
bad form
bad for you
bad girl
bad guy
bad hair day
bad hat
bad hop
bad humor
bad humour
bad influence
bad iron
baditude
bad-jacket
bad joke
bad-lad split
bad language
bad leaver
bad light
badling
bad looker
bad-looking
bad loser
bad lot
bad luck
badman
Badman
bad-mannered
bad manners
bad medicine
badmin
bad mind
bad-minded
bad money
bad money drives out good
bad mood
bad-mouth
bad name
bad-natured
badness
bad news
bad news travels fast
badnik
bad off
bad old days
bad part of town
bad patch
bad penny
bad press
bad quarto
bad rap
bad scran to someone
bad seed
bad show
bad sign
badsome
bad sport
bad-talk
bad taste in one's mouth
bad temper
bad-tempered
Bad Thing
bad things come in threes
badthink
bad to beat
bad to the bone
bad touch
bad trip
bad trot
bad turn
bad up
badvocacy
badvocate
badware
bad weather
bad winner
bad word
bearer of bad news
be taken bad
big and bad
big bad
break bad
deal a bad hand
dirtybadwrong
do-badder
down bad
drop like a bad habit
fake bad
feel-bad
fire is a good servant but a bad master
get on someone's bad side
give a bad name
give a dog a bad name and hang him
give something up as a bad job
go bad
go from bad to worse
gone bad
good-bad
good cop-bad cop
good-cop bad-cop
good cop bad cop
good-cop-bad-cop
good riddance of bad rubbish
good riddance to bad rubbish
go to the bad
hard cases make bad law
have a bad time of it
have it bad
in a bad spot
in a bad way
in bad
in bad bread
in bad odor
in bad odour
in bad part
in bad repair
in bad shape
in bad taste
make the best of a bad bargain
make the best of a bad job
megabad
miles of bad road
my bad
nonbad
not bad
not half bad
on bad terms
one bad apple can spoil the barrel
one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch
one bad turn deserves another
one of His Majesty's bad bargains
Orange Man bad
pay good money after bad
Peck's bad boy
pitch good money after bad
pour good money after bad
put the bad mouth on
so bad it's good
so far so bad
something bad
spend good money after bad
superbad
terribad
the bad penny always comes back
the bad penny always turns up
the bad place
there are bad apples in every orchard
there is no such thing as bad press
there is no such thing as bad publicity
throw good money after bad
too bad
with bad grace
Related terms: word: astray
word: base
word: bum
word: contemptible
word: defective
word: despicable
word: dirty
word: execrable
word: faulty
word: flawed
word: inadequate
word: insufficient
word: lacking
word: lesser
word: low-grade
word: mediocre
word: par
word: reprehensible
word: scurrilous
word: second-rate
word: under
word: unspeakable
word: useless
word: valueless
word: villainous
word: worthless
word: badness