bad actor
Americannoun
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a mean, ill-tempered, troublemaking, or evil person.
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a vicious animal.
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an inveterate criminal.
Etymology
Origin of bad actor
First recorded in 1940–45
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.
Demand from other agencies to use Grok has been anemic, people familiar with the matter said, except in a few cases where people wanted to use it to mimic a bad actor for defensive testing.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
The other problem here, of course, is that your cousin’s estranged husband is, by your account, a bad actor.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 16, 2025
In fact, it’s not any one particular bad actor or corporate attack which fuels my spite, but the affront which underlies the whole: It’s the humiliation of it all.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2024
He’s also pushing for more transparency on property sales and “accountability against bad actor landlords who intentionally drive out our low-income residents.”
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2024
He had looked strangely comical, like a bad actor auditioning for a solemn part in a play.
From "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy
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.
