worse
UK/wɜːs/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
Northumbria/wɔːs/
worse is the comparative form of bad.
worse is the comparative form of badly.
Adverb
worse
- Less skillfully.
- He drives worse than anyone else I know.
- More severely or seriously.
- The bad news affected me worse than it did my brother.
- Used to start a sentence describing something that is worse.
- Her leg is infected. Still worse, she's developing a fever.
Noun
worse
- Loss; disadvantage; defeat
- Judah was put to the worse before Israel.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Kings 4:12
- That which is worse; something less good.
- Do not think the worse of him for his enterprise.
Meaning of bad
Adjective
bad (comparative worse or (nonstandard) badder or (nonstandard) more bad, superlative worst or (nonstandard) baddest or (nonstandard) most bad)
- Of low quality.
- That movie was really bad!
- Inaccurate; incorrect
- A bad guess.
- Unfavorable; negative; not good.
- Hiring practice is very bad in this company.
- Synonyms:
- unfavorable, negative
- Not suitable or fitting.
- Do you think it is a bad idea to confront him directly?
- Synonyms:
- inappropriate, unfit, discommensurate, improper, malapropos, inapt, incommensurate, inept, inopportune, out of line
- Not appropriate, of manners etc.
- It is bad manners to talk with your mouth full.
- Harmful, especially unhealthy; liable to cause health problems.
- Lard is bad for you. Smoking is bad for you, too. Grapes are bad for dogs but not for humans.
- Synonyms:
- unhealthful, unwholesome, harmful, damaging, deleterious, detrimental, hurtful, inimical, injurious, mischievous
Meaning of badly
Adverb
badly (comparative worse, superlative worst)
- In a bad manner.
- Things are going badly for her: she did badly in her exams owing to a badly designed studying schedule.
- Antonyms:
- well
- Very much; to a great degree.
- I want it so badly.
- Synonyms:
- acutely, very much, awfully, almighty, impossibly, beyond, damn, drastically, exceedingly, extraordinarily
Verb
worse (third-person singular simple present worses, present participle worsing, simple past and past participle worsed)
- To make worse; to put at disadvantage; to discomfit.
- Weapons more violent, when next we meet, / May serve to better us and worse our foes.1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, 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...
Forms of worse
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | verse |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | worses |
| present participle | worsing |
| past participle | worsed |
| past | worsed |
Origin of worse
From Middle English worse, werse, from Old English wiersa, from Proto-West Germanic *wirsiʀō, from Proto-Germanic *wirsizô. Cognate with Dutch wers (“worse”).
Words formed from worse
- bad comes to worse
- be the worse for drink
- for better or for worse
- for better or worse
- for the worse
- get even or get even worse
- go from bad to worse
- make matters worse
- none the worse
- none to the worse
- one's bark is worse than one's bite
- so much the worse
- so much the worse for
- take a turn for the worse
- the cure is worse than the disease
- what is worse
- worse and worse
- worse-case
- worse comes to worse
- worse comes to worst
- worse for liquor
- worse for ware
- worse for wear
- worse luck
- worse off
- worse things happen at sea
Phrases with worse
Words that rhyme with worse
36 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- purse
- -verse
- coerce
- converse
- excurse
- immerse
- multiverse
- obverse
- terce
- terse
- amerce
- asperse
- herse
- neurodiverse
- perse
- reimburse
- transverse
- a blessing and a curse
- absterse
- accurse
- costotransverse
- demerse
- disburse
- Erse
- intertransverse
- megadiverse
- murse
- nontransverse
- pretransverse
- public purse
- recurse
- renverse
- sperse
- submerse
- subtransverse
- thurse
Questions about worse
- What does worse mean?
- Worse means less skillfully.
- What is worse the comparative form of?
- Worse is the comparative form of bad.
- What part of speech is worse?
- Worse can be an adverb, a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce worse?
- Worse is pronounced /wɜːs/ (UK).
Words near worse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: worse (page history and authors); bad (page history and authors); badly (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-worse.ogg.
Cite this entry: “worse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.