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.
Graham said that the U.S. military was “marching through the world” and “clearing out the bad guys.”
From Salon
“When did you and I become the bad guys?”
From Los Angeles Times
The show steers clear of politics and has empathy for its bad guys.
They said he gave less direct feedback than Lasseter and seemed to never want to be the bad guy.
It’s possible this has left him thinking the world’s bad guys are a Potemkin village, that they talk big but fold quickly.
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.
