bad seed

British

noun

informal a person who is seen as being congenitally disposed to wrongdoing and likely to be a bad influence on others

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

But it’s not just a bad seed who becomes a bully.

From Scientific American • Jul. 19, 2021

The reasons we do those things are most often not because we're born with some bad seed, but because something has driven us to this sort of point of no return.

From Salon • Jul. 13, 2021

And at the moment, she’s the “unreliable” and “uninsurable” bad seed that no one in her home country wants to deal with.

From Washington Times • Sep. 25, 2019

Gradually we learn how the sisters struggle their way toward more or less fixed identities as awkward good girl Hana and rebellious bad seed Kei.

From Seattle Times • May 13, 2018

Sabatini: To be honest with you, I just think he’s a bad seed.

From "Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago" by LeAlan Jones

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023