Word.ws English Dictionary

bad apple

bad apple noun: a person who is not wholesome, honest, or trustworthy, especially one who has an adverse influence on others.

Noun

bad apple (plural bad apples)

  1. (idiomatic, in plural, often) A person who is not wholesome, honest, or trustworthy, especially one who has an adverse influence on others.
    • Near-synonym: bad egg
    • There is one bad apple, and that is Katie, the beautiful prostitute with whom Catcher Bruce is in love. Unlike the cliche harlot of fiction, she is as short of compassion as Bruce is of IQ.1956 March 19, “Echoing Ring (book review of Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris)”, in TIME, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2012

bad apple meaning in Hindi

bad apple in Hindi

person who is not wholesome
गंदी मछली gandī machlī

Examples of bad apple in a sentence

  • While most union leaders are people of integrity, there are still bad apples.2003 October 5, Steven Greenhouse, “Unions See Politics in New Disclosure Rules”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 06...
  • If anyone still harbors the fantasy that the business scandals of the past few years were the handiwork of just a few bad apples, they should read John Bogle's "Battle for the Soul of Capitalism."2006 January 27, Jeff Madrick, “Wall Street: More than few bad apples”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 13 Nov 2021:

Synonyms of bad apple

Forms of bad apple

pluralbad apples

Origin of bad apple

From the proverb “one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch” (or a variant thereof).

Words formed from bad apple

Questions about bad apple

What does bad apple mean?
Bad apple means a person who is not wholesome, honest, or trustworthy, especially one who has an adverse influence on others.
What is bad apple in Hindi?
Bad apple in Hindi is गंदी मछली (gandī machlī). See Bad apple meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bad apple in a sentence?
While most union leaders are people of integrity, there are still bad apples.
What part of speech is bad apple?
Bad apple is a noun.
What is the plural of bad apple?
The plural of bad apple is bad apples.

Words near bad apple in the dictionary

  1. Bacău
  2. bad
  3. bad actor
  4. bad actors
  5. bad aji
  6. bad apple
  7. bad apples
  8. bad appling
  9. bad ass
  10. bad asses
  11. Bad Aussee

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bad apple (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-bad apple.ogg.

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