malignity

Noun

malignity (countable and uncountable, plural malignities)

1. The quality of being malign or malignant; badness, evilness, monstrosity, depravity, maliciousness.
   • He had some advantage in the difference of our weapons; for his sword, as I recollect, was longer than mine, […] His obvious malignity of purpose never for a moment threw him off his guard, and he exhausted every feint and strategem proper to the science of defence; while, at the same time, he...1817 December 31 (indicated as 1818), [Walter Scott], chapter XII, in Rob Roy. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co. […]; London: Longman, Hurst...
   • His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a malignity in it that made me tremble.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter LIII, in Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC

   Synonyms:

   baseness, depravity, malice, perversion, bad manners, badness, delinquency, devilishness, devilment, devilry

2. A non-benign cancer; a malignancy.
   • The absence of any histological sign of malignity in the primary tumor and in the metastases, as observed in our patient, is remarkable.2005, R.L. Abada et al., “Multiple metastases of a mandibular ameloblastoma”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
3. (collective, neologism) A group of goblins.
   • There was a whole malignity‡ of goblins up on the roof, but if you wanted your clacks to fly fast, you didn’t use the term out loud.2013, Terry Pratchett, Raising Steam (Discworld; 40), London: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 31
   • A malignity of goblins chattered loudly, some of them standing on their table.2022, JT Lawrence, The Haunted Portal (Cursebreaker; 2), Muonic Press Inc, →ISBN