bad guy
Americannoun
-
an evil or malicious person; a villain or someone perceived as one.
The actor now makes his living guest starring as the bad guy on many different TV shows.
Business consulting can turn you into the bad guy for people who don't want to know their idea could fail.
-
any person who does bad or harmful things, especially habitually.
In tech security, you just have to live with the fact that the bad guys are already ahead of you.
Etymology
Origin of bad guy
An Americanism first recorded in 1920–25
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.
Burns wore his low, almost over his eyes, like the bad guys.
From Los Angeles Times
Pua has her hands folded and pressed against her chest, like she’s praying Leo isn’t the bad guy in the story.
From Literature
"I know these people in the neighborhood, they're not bad people, so why would they be afraid? They're only coming after the bad guys."
From BBC
"It essentially meant that we didn't have to be the bad guys," Sam says.
From BBC
It was like one of those movies where the bad guy is done monologuing, and the trap that he’s set hasn’t gone off yet, so everyone’s sitting around waiting for the BOOM.
From Literature
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.
