malevolence
Americannoun
Synonym Usage
Malevolence, malignity, rancor suggest the wishing of harm to others. Malevolence is a smoldering ill will: a vindictive malevolence in her expression. Malignity is a deep-seated and virulent disposition to injure; it is more dangerous than malevolence, because it is not only more completely concealed but it often instigates harmful acts: The malignity of his nature was shocking. Rancor is a lasting, corrosive, and implacable hatred and resentment.
Etymology
Origin of malevolence
First recorded in 1425–75; from Latin malevolentia, from malevolent- (stem of malevolēns malevolent ) + -ia -y; replacing late Middle English malivolence, from Middle French, from Latin, as above
Explanation
Malevolence is a nasty, wicked, evil quality. When you're full of malevolence, you wish harm on others. Translated from the Latin, malevolence means to wish for bad things — to have ill will. What sets malevolence apart from other kinds of hatefulness is that it implies a deliberate wish for evil. A small child might be mean out of anger or spite, but probably not out of malevolence. Malevolence requires more thought: it's a deeper, more profound kind of badness often associated with devils and villains.
Vocabulary lists containing malevolence
The Tragedy of Macbeth
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"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe
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And Then There Were None
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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.
For most, the games they’re making — with grandiose names like Rise of the Gods, Artificial Malevolence and Tactical Tech among them — are their first attempts and labors of love.
From Seattle Times • Jan. 9, 2020
He dangles from familiar hang-ups: a nagging wife whom he calls Her Malevolence, a job about which he feels guilty, and a loathing for the contemporary English way of life.
From Time Magazine Archive
Malevolence, in my experience, is not the worst of dangers a man as exposed as I has to fear.
From The Debit Account by Onions, Oliver [pseud.]
Malevolence to the clergy is seldom at a great distance from irreverence of religion, and Dryden affords no exception to this observation.
From Lives of the Poets, Volume 1 by Johnson, Samuel
The reformatory repeats the prison chaplain's verdict, "weakness, not wickedness," in its own way: "Malevolence does not characterize the criminal, but aversion to continuous labor."
From A Ten Year War An Account of The Battle with The Slum in New York by Riis, Jacob A. (Jacob August)
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.
