evil
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
programming
sciences
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.
Alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h₃ewp- (“down, up, over”).
Cognates
Cognate with Dutch euvel (“evil”), German übel (“bad, evil”), German Low German övel (“evil”), Luxembourgish iwwel (“queasy, nauseous; bad”), Gothic 𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌻𐍃 (ubils, “bad, evil”). Compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *uɸelos, and Hittite 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣 (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒉺𒀸 (huwappa-, “evil, badness”).
Inflected forms:
form: eviller
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: eviler
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: more evil
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: evillest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: evilest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: most evil
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: evils
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Intending to harm; malevolent.
pos: adj
examples: an evil plot to brainwash and even kill innocent people
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.
2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351,
“Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.”
“You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”
He tells secret dreams to strangers , imagines he can achieve art without discipline , regards all boundaries as evil , ignores ancestors , wants comfort and merging , believes cunning is wrong , and as a scholar or artist doesn't […]
gloss: Morally corrupt.
pos: adj
examples: If something is evil, it is never mandatory.
Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death’s approach is seen so terrible.
I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]
To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]
gloss: Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
pos: adj
examples: 1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100,
An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]
He awoke in an evil temper […]
1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282,
It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.
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.
gloss: Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
pos: adj
examples: The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;
[…] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:
A little stay will bring some notice hither,
For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
“[…] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”
I cannot overestimate how much it meant to me to have the support of my brothers in BWMT/MACT both in and out of prison while I was laid up with pneumocystis pneumonia during those dog days of August 1987. My wall is decked with cards, letters, and pictures from those evil days, and my support system included rides, flowers, candy, magazines of every description, and lots of hugs from gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
gloss: Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
gloss: Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.
pos: adj
tags: slang
examples: Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.
gloss: Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: The evils of society include murder and theft.
Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.
The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.
IS ANYTHING more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles project into every level of human existence. We may debate the origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its reality. Evil is stark, grim, and colossally real.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
tags: countable
uncountable
examples: evils which our own misdeeds have wrought
The evil that men do lives after them.
gloss: A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
examples: [The disease]Tis call'd the Euill.
He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.
Synonyms: nefarious
malicious
malevolent
wicked
abandoned
arrant
bad
bad apple
bad seed
baleful
scurrilous
baneful
base
black-hearted
dark
deleterious
demonic
depraved
despicable
detrimental
devilish
diabolical
evil
evil-minded
facinorous
flagitious
harmful
heinous
ill-intentioned
ill-natured
immoral
incorrigible
iniquitous
iniquous
injurious
knavish
malefic
maleficent
malign
malignant
naughty
niddering
nidering
niding
nithing
no-good
peccaminous
pernicious
reprehensible
reprobate
satanic
scathful
sinful
sinister
sordid
sullen
ungodly
unholy
vicious
vile
villainous
wrong
Antonyms: good
angelic
benign
good-minded
just
moral
righteous
well-intentioned
Related words: villainy
Derived words: chaotic evil
colt's evil
evil be to him who evil thinks
evil container
evil day
evil-doer
evil eye
evil-eye
evilfare
evil genius
evil hour
evilista
evility
evilize
evil laugh
evil laughter
evilly
evil maid attack
evil-minded
evilness
Evil One
evil-speaking
evil-tempered
evil to him that evil thinks
evil turn
evil twin
evilution
evilutionary
evilutionist
evil willer
mid-evil
moor-evil
nonevil
pure evil
shame be to him who thinks evil of it
turning evil
unevil
axis of evil
colt evil
evildoer
evildoing
evilist
evilology
evilworker
fox evil
greater evil
greater of two evils
king's evil
lawful evil
lesser evil
lesser of two evils
lousy evil
money is the root of all evil
necessary evil
neutral evil
poll evil
problem of evil
quarter-evil
root of all evil
snowshoe evil
social evil
stag-evil
sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof
the love of money is the root of all evil
Translations: