villainy

American  

[vil-uh-nee] / ˈvɪl ə ni /

noun

plural

villainies

1. the actions or conduct of a villain; outrageous wickedness.

2. a villainous act or deed.

3. Obsolete. villeinage.

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villainy British  

/ ˈvɪlənɪ /

noun

1. conduct befitting a villain; vicious behaviour or action

2. an evil, abhorrent, or criminal act or deed

3. the fact or condition of being villainous

4. English history a rare word for villeinage

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Etymology

Origin of villainy

1175–1225; Middle English vile ( i ) nie, vilainie < Old French. See villain, -y ³

Explanation

Villainy is a characteristic of being evil or wicked. A movie character's villainy is what makes him the bad guy, the one the audience roots against. You might be surprised to learn of your next door neighbor's villainy — if, say, he turned out to be a bank robber. In comic books, superheroes fight against villainy, battling the villains. Villainy, in fact, comes from villain, rooted in the Medieval Latin villanus, "farmhand." A villain was once a "peasant," then a "boor" or "clown," and finally a "scoundrel."

Example Sentences

Villainy manifests in enough guises across the genre to make one feel lucky to have avoided some criminal’s trap.

From Salon • Oct. 16, 2025

A 2015 article in Atlas Obscura, headlined “A Cave of Villainy on the Ohio River,” paints a dark picture of the cave that was “discovered” by French explorer M. De Lery in 1739.

From Washington Times • Aug. 9, 2020

Villainy and virtue are clearly marked, and the evil that Tubman resisted is illuminated alongside her bravery.

From New York Times • Oct. 31, 2019

The paper’s first story corroborating O’Rourke’s details ran on July 8, under the headline: “More Ring Villainy: Gigantic Frauds in the Rental of Armories.”

From Scientific American • Feb. 21, 2014

Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is—HEEP!'

From David Copperfield by Dickens, Charles