Word.ws English Dictionary

actual malice

actual malice noun: in United States defamation law, the level of knowledge that must be demonstrated for a public figure to prevail as a plaintiff in a lawsuit for defamation; the defendant must have either known that information published about the plaintiff was false, or must have shown reckless disregard for the truth by not a making simple inquiry or investigation which would have disclosed it.

Noun

actual malice (uncountable)

  1. In United States defamation law, the level of knowledge that must be demonstrated for a public figure to prevail as a plaintiff in a lawsuit for defamation; the defendant must have either known that information published about the plaintiff was false, or must have shown reckless disregard for the truth by not a making simple inquiry or investigation which would have disclosed it.

Questions about actual malice

What does actual malice mean?
Actual malice means in United States defamation law, the level of knowledge that must be demonstrated for a public figure to prevail as a plaintiff in a lawsuit for defamation; the defendant must have either known that information published about the plaintiff was false, or must have shown reckless disregard for the truth by not a making simple inquiry or investigation which would have disclosed it.
What part of speech is actual malice?
Actual malice is a noun.

Words near actual malice in the dictionary

  1. actual cash values
  2. actual cost
  3. actual costs
  4. actual flying time
  5. actual flying times
  6. actual malice
  7. actual neuroses
  8. actual neurosis
  9. actual occasions
  10. actual parameter
  11. actual parameters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: actual malice (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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