noun
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the condition or quality of being malign, malevolent, or deadly
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(often plural) a malign or malicious act or feeling
Synonym Usage
See malevolence.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of malignity
1350–1400; Middle English malignitee, from Latin malignitās. See malign, -ity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Intimately acquainted with Richard’s malignity, these ruined royals know only too well the toll of his depraved machinations.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 26, 2026
His malignity and psychopathology seem to attract followers when these same characteristics should repulse people.
From Salon • Mar. 4, 2024
It bore the painting of a woman of strange beauty, but the dark eyes stared into vacancy with a cold malignity of expression.
From Slate • Oct. 14, 2018
What about that insistent crisis of national conscience “the American Negro”? And was all this due to something lodged deep in the system, something intrinsically American—or was it the singular malignity of Lyndon Johnson?
From The New Yorker • May 22, 2017
The existence of pure malignity must, it is true, be admitted; it may be partly explained as love of the "sensational," the novel; the full explanation must be left to the psychologist.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by Williams, C. M.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
