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
You may be able to add an “alert” to your bank account, notifying the bank of any named person, aka bad actor, who should never and will never have access to your account.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 31, 2025
“We must root out every bad actor from a Probation Department long plagued by a culture of corruption.”
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 11, 2024
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 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.
