Word.ws English Dictionary

necessary evils

necessary evils is the plural of necessary evil.

Meaning of necessary evil

Noun

necessary evil (plural necessary evils)

  1. (idiomatic) An unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted, especially because the available alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse.
    • Another punishing round of chemo is a necessary evil if Lisa is to have a fighting chance against the cancer.

Questions about necessary evils

What is necessary evils the plural of?
Necessary evils is the plural of necessary evil.

Words near necessary evils in the dictionary

  1. necessars
  2. necessary
  3. necessary condition
  4. necessary conditions
  5. necessary evil
  6. necessary evils
  7. necessary house
  8. necessary houses
  9. necessary place
  10. necessary places
  11. necessary room

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: necessary evils (page history and authors); necessary evil (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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