malice
Syllables: mal·ice/ˈmælɪs/
malice noun: intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune.
Noun
malice (usually uncountable, plural malices)
- Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune.
- Your voice positively drips malice.
- […] not only was there no gratitude (which he could psychologically handle) but downright malice showed itself instead.1981, Philip K. Dick, Valis, →ISBN, page 67
- Synonyms:
- evil, ill will, wickedness
- An intention to do injury to another party, which in many jurisdictions is a distinguishing factor between the crimes of murder and manslaughter.
- The question that would have been before the jury was whether Fox committed “actual malice” in airing the claims. That required Dominion to show whether key decision makers were aware the claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.2023 April 18, Sam Levine, Kira Lerner, “Fox and Dominion settle for US$787.5m in defamation lawsuit over election lies”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
Verb
malice (third-person singular simple present malices, present participle malicing, simple past and past participle maliced)
- To intend to cause harm; to bear malice.
- Thou blinded God (quod I) forgive me this offence, / Unwittingly I went about, to malice thy pretence.1557, Henry Howard, “Complaint of a lover that defied Love and was by Love after the more tormented”, in Songes and Sonettes
- Who on the other ſide did ſeeme ſo farre / From malicing, or grudging his good houre, / That, all he could, he graced him with her, / Ne euer ſhewed ſigne of rancour or of iarre.1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 477
malice meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
malice in Hindi
- intention to harm
- दुर्भाव durbhāv, दुर्भावना durbhāvnā, विद्वेष vidveṣ, कुभाव kubhāv, कुभावना kubhāvnā, कीना kīnā
malice in Tamil
- கெடுநோக்கு, கெட்ட நோக்கு, வன்மம்
malice in Marathi
- दुर्भावना
malice in Urdu
- malice
- بدنیت badnīt, ہنسا hinsā
More languagesFewer languages
- malice in Bengali
- অশুভ কামনা, অন্যের ক্ষতিসাধনের ইচ্ছা, বিদ্বেষ
- malice in Malayalam
- ദുഷ്ടത duṣṭata
- malice in Kannada
- ದ್ವೇಷ, ಹಗೆತನ, ಮತ್ಸರ, ಕೇಡುಬಗೆಯುವಿಕೆ
- malice in Punjabi
- ਬਦਨੀਤੀ
- malice in Gujarati
- દુર્ભાવના
- malice in Sanskrit
- जिघांसा jighāṃsā, घृणा ghṛṇā́
- malice in Arabic
- حِقْد ḥiqd
- malice in Thai
- เจตนาร้าย, ความมุ่งร้าย kwaam-mûng-ráai
Examples of malice in a sentence
- without the slightest flutter of malice in her round face.2015, Catherynne M. Valente, The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, Feiwel & Friends, page 215:
- Here's a list of side effects / Practice tested / Covering every maliced angle / For example: / You will sleep forever / You will never sleep again1995, Fugazi, “Fell, Destroyed”, in Red Medicine, performed by Guy Picciotto:
- I haven't maliced anybody, definitely not.2018 May 14, Kimberley Small, quoting Marion Hall, “Dancehall was contentious, says Marion Hall”, in The Jamaica Star:
Synonyms of malice
Forms of malice
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | malices |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | malices |
| present participle | malicing |
| past participle | maliced |
| past | maliced |
Origin of malice
From Middle English malice, borrowed from Old French malice, from Latin malitia (“badness, bad quality, ill-will, spite”), from malus (“bad”).
Words formed from malice
Phrases with malice
Words that rhyme with malice
Questions about malice
- What does malice mean?
- Malice means intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune.
- What is malice in Hindi?
- Malice in Hindi is दुर्भाव (durbhāv), दुर्भावना (durbhāvnā), विद्वेष (vidveṣ). See Malice meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use malice in a sentence?
- without the slightest flutter of malice in her round face.
- What part of speech is malice?
- Malice can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce malice?
- Malice is pronounced /ˈmælɪs/.
- What is the plural of malice?
- The plural of malice is malices.
Words near malice in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: malice (page history and authors); malice (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malice (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); بدنیت (Urdu) (page history and authors); malice (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malice (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malice (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malice (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); घृणा (Sanskrit) (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-malice.ogg.
Cite this entry: “malice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/malice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.