malicious
/məˈlɪʃəs/
malicious adjective: intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.
Adjective
malicious (comparative more malicious, superlative most malicious)
- Intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.
- He was sent off for a malicious tackle on Jones.
- And novv, if you are a Malitious Reader, I expect you ſhould return upon me, that I affect to be thought more Impartial than I am.1681, [John Dryden], “To the Reader”, in Absalom and Achitophel. A Poem, London: […] J[acob] T[onson] and are to be sold by W. Davis […], →OCLC
- Synonyms:
- evil, maleficent, malevolent, abandoned, arrant, bad, bad apple, bad seed, baleful, scurrilous
malicious meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
malicious in Hindi
- deliberately harmful; spiteful
- द्वेषी dveṣī
malicious in Tamil
- கெடு நோக்குடைய, தீயநோக்குடைய, வன்மமான, வன்ம நோக்கான
malicious in Marathi
- दुर्भावनापूर्ण, दुर्भावनायुक्त
malicious in Urdu
- کمینہ, کینہ پرور
More languagesFewer languages
- malicious in Bengali
- বিদ্বেষপরায়ণ, বিদ্বেষপূর্ণ
- malicious in Telugu
- దురుద్దేశపూరితమైనది
- malicious in Malayalam
- പകയുള്ള, വിദ്വേഷക, വിദ്വേഷി, വിദ്വേഷമുള്ള
- malicious in Kannada
- ದುರುದ್ದೇಶಪೂರಿತ, ದುರುದ್ದೇಶಪೂರಿತವಾಗಿದೆ
- malicious in Punjabi
- ਬਦਨੀਤੀਪੂਰਨ, ਬਦਨੀਤੀ ਵਾਲਾ
- malicious in Gujarati
- દુર્ભાવનાપૂર્ણ
- malicious in Sanskrit
- दुर्जन durjana
- malicious in Nepali
- दुर्भावनापूर्ण
- malicious in Malay
- berniat jahat
- malicious in Indonesian
- hasad, jahat, berniat jahat
Examples of malicious in a sentence
- Accusations of abuse were pure extortive calumny in a malicious bid to make money.
- Client-side validation of data is dangerous because the client might be malicious.
- The malicious boss thought that all of his employees were underworked.
Synonyms of malicious
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- base
- black-hearted
- dark
- deleterious
- demonic
- depraved
- despicable
- detrimental
- devilish
- diabolical
- evil-minded
- flagitious
- harmful
- heinous
- ill-intentioned
- ill-natured
- immoral
- incorrigible
- iniquitous
- injurious
- knavish
- malefic
- malign
- malignant
- nefarious
- no-good
- peccaminous
- pernicious
- reprehensible
- reprobate
Forms of malicious
| comparative | more malicious |
|---|---|
| superlative | most malicious |
| alternative form | malitious |
Origin of malicious
From Middle English malicious, from Old French malicios, from Latin malitiōsus, from malitia (“malice”), from malus (“bad”). Displaced native Middle English ivelwilled and ivelwilly (“malicious”), related to Old English yfelwillende (literally “evil-willing”). By surface analysis, malice + -ious.
Words formed from malicious
Phrases with malicious
Questions about malicious
- What does malicious mean?
- Malicious means intending to do harm; characterized by spite and malice.
- What is malicious in Hindi?
- Malicious in Hindi is द्वेषी (dveṣī). See Malicious meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is malicious?
- Malicious is an adjective.
- How do you pronounce malicious?
- Malicious is pronounced /məˈlɪʃəs/.
Words near malicious in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: malicious (page history and authors); malicious (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malicious (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malicious (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malicious (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); malicious (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malicious (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); malicious (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malicious (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malicious (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); malicious (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-malicious.wav.
Cite this entry: “malicious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/malicious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
