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
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
Some resistance was more overtly political; the critic Elaine Showalter, on Twitter, decried a plotline of the “saintly academic hero tormented by motiveless malignity of his despicable wife and other monsters.”
From The New Yorker • Mar. 11, 2019
If Ferdinand represents human malignity and Goya its frailty then Arrieta stands for man’s innate goodness.
From The Guardian • Sep. 26, 2015
In short, the only exception which could be taken to an accusing witness was malignity.
From A History of The Inquisition of The Middle Ages; volume I by Lea, Henry Charles
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.
