Word.ws English Dictionary

bad-ass

bad-ass is the alternative form of badass.

Meaning of badass

Adjective

badass (comparative more badass, superlative most badass)

  1. (US, slang, sometimes considered vulgar, negative connotation) Belligerent and troublesome.
    • Uncle Jr. was really quiet. Probably because he was a junior high school teacher and was around badass, hollerin' kids all day.2005, Cupcake Brown, chapter 2, in A Piece of Cake: A Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Crown, →ISBN, page 21
  2. (US, slang, sometimes considered vulgar, positive connotation) Having an extreme appearance, attitude, or behavior that is considered admirable.
    • That tough guy looks badass.
    Synonyms:
    awesome, cool, sick, wicked

See all 4 meanings of badass

Forms of bad-ass

Adjective
comparativemore bad-ass
superlativemost bad-ass
Noun
pluralbad-asses

Words formed from bad-ass

Questions about bad-ass

What is bad-ass the alternative form of?
Bad-ass is the alternative form of badass.

Words near bad-ass in the dictionary

  1. bad winner
  2. bad winners
  3. bad word
  4. bad words
  5. bad wrap
  6. bad-ass
  7. bad-assery
  8. bad-asses
  9. bad-assness
  10. bad-boy
  11. bad-boys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bad-ass (page history and authors); badass (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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Cite this entry: “bad-ass.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bad-ass. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.