villain
Americannoun
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villains
plural
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a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.
- Synonyms:
- scamp, rogue, rapscallion, rascal, knave
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a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
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a person or thing considered to be the cause of something bad.
Fear is the villain that can sabotage our goals.
noun
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a wicked or malevolent person
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(in a novel, play, film, etc) the main evil character and antagonist to the hero
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humorous a mischievous person; rogue
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slang:police a criminal
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history a variant spelling of villein
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obsolete an uncouth person; boor
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of villain
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English vilein, vilain “churlish rustic, serf,” from Middle French, from Vulgar Latin and Medieval Latin villānus “a farm servant, farmhand”; see origin at villa, -an
Explanation
A villain is a bad person — real or made up. In books, movies, current events, or history, the villain is the character who does mean, evil things on purpose. Today a villain is a wicked person, whether in fact or fiction. In the 1300s, villain described a low-born rustic. It came from the Medieval Latin word villanus, or farmhand. Just why a word would evolve from meaning farmer into evildoer is a little mysterious, although it probably has to do with farmers not being chivalrous, like the knights who were so admired in those days.
Vocabulary lists containing villain
"Black Panther" Lingo
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Superhero Lexicon
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"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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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.
See Examples For:
Is it the main villain in One Thousand and One Nights?
From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2026
She may be a killer, but she isn’t the villain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026
Over his 23-year career in the NBA, LeBron James has been a hero and a villain, a savior and a traitor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026
I'm glad the message of this story is that, even though I'm the villain, everyone's sticking up for the national park.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
But Benji wondered if she would actually be happy to see them fail, like a truly evil villain.
From "Millionaires for the Month" by Stacey McAnulty
There are no villains here, just a group of super-fit college grads.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
Some imagine the ICC to be a judicial superhero, dispensing justice to arch villains around the world.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
Whether he was playing steely but likeable heroes or a chillingly menacing villains, Neill was one of the most versatile stars in the film industry and always commanded attention on screen.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
After all, the “Toy Story” franchise has had pure villains before — one of them almost got away with incinerating the toys for good!
From Salon ● Jun. 21, 2026
The same moralistic dichotomy that Jefferson saw inside the United States between discernible heroes and villains, he also projected into the international arena.
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
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.
