evil
Syllables: e·vil/ˈiːvəl/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
obsolete[ˈɪi̯vɪl]
evil adjective: intending to harm; malevolent.
Adjective
evil (comparative eviller or eviler or more evil, superlative evillest or evilest or most evil)
- Intending to harm; malevolent.
- 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.1864 August – 1866 January, [Elizabeth] Gaskell, chapter 47, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published...
- Morally corrupt.
- If something is evil, it is never mandatory.
- Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?
- Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
- 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]...1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100
- He awoke in an evil temper […]1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, chapter 18, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC
- Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
- The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
- […] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Deuteronomy 22:19
- Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
- an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop
- A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 7:18
- Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.
- Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.
Noun
evil (countable and uncountable, plural evils)
- Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
- The evils of society include murder and theft.
- Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.
- Synonyms:
- enormity
- 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.
- evils which our own misdeeds have wrought1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
- The evil that men do lives after them.1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
- [The disease]Tis call'd the Euill.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.1711 March 23 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “MONDAY, March 13, 1710–1711”, in The Spectator, number 329; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a...
Adverb
evil (comparative more evil, superlative most evil)
- wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
- O what of Gods then boots it to be borne, / If old Aveugles ſonnes ſo euill heare?1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part I (books I–III), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza ii, page 66
- injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
- And many ſhall follow their pernicious wayes, by reaſon of whom the way of trueth ſhall be euill ſpoken of:1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Peter 2:2
- badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.
- It went evil with him.
- But (as the Poet ſaith) Malè ſarta gratia, nequicquam coit, & reſcinditur: Friendſhip, that is but euill peeced, will not ioine cloſe, but falleth aſunder againe:1570, William Lambard, quoting Horace, A Perambulation of Kent, published 1596, page 341
evil meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
evil in Hindi
- intending to harm
- दुष्ट duṣṭ, बुरा burā, पापी pāpī
- morally corrupt
- दुष्ट duṣṭ
- moral badness, wickedness
- बुराई burāī, दुष्टता duṣṭatā, बदी badī
evil in Tamil
- intending to harm
- தீய tīya
evil in Marathi
- intending to harm
- दुष्ट duṣṭa, वाईट vāīṭ
- morally corrupt
- दुष्ट duṣṭa
- moral badness, wickedness
- दुष्टता duṣṭatā
evil in Urdu
- moral badness, wickedness
- بَدی badī, بُرائی burāī, شَر śar
More languagesFewer languages
- evil in Bengali
- মন্দ mondo
- evil in Telugu
- దుష్ట duṣṭa, దెయ్యం deyyaṁ
- evil in Malayalam
- തിന്മ tinma
- evil in Kannada
- ಕೆಟ್ಟ keṭṭa, ದುಷ್ಠ duṣṭha
- evil in Punjabi
- ਬੁਰਾਈ burāī, ਬਦੀ badī, ਬੁਰਾ burā, ਮਾੜਾ māṛā
- evil in Sanskrit
- पाप pāpa
- evil in Sinhala
- දුෂ්ට ඉතා නරක duṣṭa
- evil in Assamese
- খবিছ khobis
- evil in Pashto
- شر šar, بد bad
- evil in Tagalog
- masama, kasamaan
- evil in Arabic
- شِرِّير širrīr, شَرِير šarīr, شَرّ šarr, سَوْء sawʔ
- evil in Malay
- jahat, kejahatan
- evil in Indonesian
- jahat, kejahatan
- evil in Persian
- شرور šarur, بدکار badkâr, شرورانه šarurâne, پلید palid
- evil in Thai
- ชั่วร้าย chûua-ráai, ชั่ว chûua, ความชั่วร้าย kwaam-chûua-ráai, บาป bàap
- evil in Vietnamese
- ác, cái ác
- evil in Myanmar
- အကုသိုလ် a.ku.suil, မကောင်းမှု ma.kaung:hmu.
- Dzongkha
- མ་རུངས་པ
Examples of evil in a sentence
- 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.1916, Zane Grey, chapter 10, in The Border Legion, New York: Harper & Bros., page 147:
- I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 41, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
- To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]1967, Chaim Potok, chapter 1, in The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Columbine, published 2003, page 14:
- He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, published 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125:
Synonyms of evil
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Antonyms
Forms of evil
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | eviller |
| comparative | eviler |
| comparative | more evil |
| superlative | evillest |
| superlative | evilest |
| superlative | most evil |
| Noun | |
| plural | evils |
| Adverb | |
| comparative | more evil |
| superlative | most evil |
Origin of evil
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”).
From Middle English yvele, yvel, ivel, from Old English yfele (“badly, evilly”), a derivative of the adjective yfel (“bad, evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").
Words formed from evil
- 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
Phrases with evil
- evil eyes
- evil genii
- evil turns
- evil twins
- evil laughs
- social evil
- axes of evil
- evil willers
- evil geniuses
- evil maid attacks
- roots of all evil
- Evil Questions Attacking Ontario
2 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with evil
Questions about evil
- What does evil mean?
- Evil means intending to harm; malevolent.
- What is evil in Hindi?
- Evil in Hindi is दुष्ट (duṣṭ), बुरा (burā), पापी (pāpī). See Evil meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use evil in a sentence?
- 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.
- What part of speech is evil?
- Evil can be an adjective, a noun or an adverb.
- How do you pronounce evil?
- Evil is pronounced /ˈiːvəl/.
Words near evil in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: evil (page history and authors); ਬਦੀ (Punjabi) (page history and authors); খবিছ (Assamese) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-evil.ogg.
Cite this entry: “evil.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/evil. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.