evil

Meanings

Adjective

• Intending to harm; malevolent.
• Morally corrupt.
• Unpleasant, foul (of odour, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
• Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
• Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
• Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.

Noun

• Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
• Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
• A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.

Adverb

• wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
• injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
• badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

Related

Similar words

• nefarious
• malicious
• malevolent
• wicked

Opposite words

• good

Origin

• From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂upélos (compare Old Irish fel ("bad, evil"), from Proto-Celtic *uɸelos), diminutive of *h₂wep- (compare Hittite 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣, 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒉺𒀸), or alternatively from *upélos, from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h₃ewp-.
• From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfele, yfle, a derivative of the noun yfel. Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").