adjective
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characterized by malice
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motivated by wrongful, vicious, or mischievous purposes
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of malicious
First recorded in 1175–1225; Middle English malicius, from Old French, from Latin malitiōsus; see malice, -ous
Explanation
Someone who is malicious enjoys hurting or embarrassing others. If you're writing a book about good and evil, you'll want to come up with a truly malicious character to do all the bad stuff. Malicious is the adjective based on the noun malice, which means the desire to harm others. Both words come from the Latin word malus, for bad. If someone is malicious he doesn't just make bad things happen; he loves to make bad things happen.
Vocabulary lists containing malicious
The SAT: Words to Capture Tone, List 2
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Fake It 'Til You Make It: Synonyms for "False"
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The New SAT: Words to Capture Tone
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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.
Malicious state actors, he once said, may have the money but “they don’t have a million credit cards and they don’t have a million phones.”
From Slate • Oct. 19, 2023
Malicious operators in the past could produce sophisticated disinformation media with specialized software in days or weeks.
From Washington Times • Sep. 14, 2023
Malicious use and even hacking of brain wearables is another threat.
From Scientific American • Mar. 27, 2023
In both instances I used McAfee Antivirus, Malwarebytes, and finally the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool on all of my connected PCs to identify and fix this problem.
From Seattle Times • Jul. 30, 2022
Malicious words, the wit of pages, characteristics these of the young men of the court, never escaped his lips.
From Count Br?hl by Kraszewski, Jo?zef Ignacy
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.
