bad news

American

noun

Informal.

an annoying, disturbing, unwelcome thing or person; nuisance; troublemaker.

bad news British

noun

slang someone or something regarded as undesirable

he's bad news around here

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

bad news Idioms

An unwelcome thing or person, trouble. For example, That fire was bad news; we were underinsured for the damage , or No one wants Mary on the board—she's bad news . This term transfers literal bad news—the report of an unhappy recent event—to an unwanted or undesirable individual or circumstance. [ Slang ; 1920s]
The amount charged for something, as in Waiter, bring our check—I want to see the bad news . [ Slang ; 1920s]

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.

Mortgage rates’ trajectory this year isn’t entirely bad news for buyers.

From Barron's

Equities fell again on the bad news, but none of this is a cause for a panic attack.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mothers and wives were always calm when bad news came.

From Literature

They were trained to hear bad news.

From Literature

But on Friday there was more bad news for investors.

From MarketWatch

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023