maleficent
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of maleficent
1670–80; back formation from Latin maleficentia maleficence; see -ent
Explanation
When you're maleficent, you're evil or want to do evil things. So it's safe to say that Satan is one maleficent guy. This word is a bit old-fashioned and you don't hear it often. But there are still plenty of maleficent people in the world — they're the bad guys, the evil-doers, the folks who wish harm on others. Maleficent means something very close to malevolent or diabolical and is a lot stronger than naughty or mischievous.
Vocabulary lists containing maleficent
"The Odyssey" by Homer, Books 1–7
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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.
Their maleficent Ronettes angle was funny and self-aware, but utterly sincere about the true promise of Satanism — autonomy, knowledge, freedom.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 13, 2026
“It’s really hard to predict all the maleficent uses,” said Giada Pistilli, principal ethicist at Hugging Face.
From Slate ● Jan. 14, 2023
He’s the life coach to an almost certainly maleficent Big Data C.E.O.
From New York Times ● Aug. 5, 2014
We hope they’ll be enlivened by that maleficent spirit, the genius Loki.
From Time ● Nov. 6, 2013
But their Blindness, with Respect to these two Sorts of maleficent Beings, is inconceivable.
From Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health by S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David) Tissot
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
