malevolent
Americanadjective
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wishing evil or harm to another or others; showing ill will; ill-disposed; malicious.
His failures made him malevolent toward those who were successful.
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evil; harmful; injurious.
a malevolent inclination to destroy the happiness of others.
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Astrology. evil or malign in influence.
adjective
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wishing or appearing to wish evil to others; malicious
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astrology having an evil influence
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of malevolent
First recorded in 1500–10; from Latin malevolent-, stem of malevolēns “ill-disposed, spiteful,” from male- male- + volēns “wanting” (present participle of velle “to want, wish for, desire”; see also will 1)
Explanation
If someone is malevolent, they wish evil on others. If you find yourself approaching someone with a malevolent look in her eye, best to run the other way. Malevolent comes from the Latin word malevolens, which means "ill-disposed, spiteful"; its opposite is benevolent, which means "wishing good things for others." A malevolent person might display satisfaction at someone else's problems. But it's not only individuals who can be malevolent. If you think that television violence influences viewers to violence, you see television as a malevolent force. The stress is on the second syllable: muh-LEV-uh-lent.
Vocabulary lists containing malevolent
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Take the Bad with the Good: Bene and Mal
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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.
The writer Octavio Paz, the Mexican Nobel laureate, denounced Malinche as a kind of malevolent Eve whose submission to Cortés forever defiled Mexico’s mixed identity.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 25, 2026
They found that when a phishing pop-up had clear malevolent telltales, like misspellings, the phone and PC users tended to avoid it at similar rates.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 9, 2025
It’s like a malevolent Ouroboros, where we can’t tell which is the head and which the tail, or which end is swallowing the other.
From Salon • Nov. 16, 2025
We know these animals are not malevolent, just trying to survive, and so the traps dispatch them with as little suffering as possible.
From Slate • Aug. 8, 2025
This giant was another child of Gaea—a creature of the earth so malevolent and powerful, he radiated his own gravitational field.
From "The Son of Neptune" by Rick Riordan
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.
