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
- malevolence noun
- malevolently adverb
- unmalevolent adjective
- unmalevolently adverb
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”; will 1 )
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.
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
“Or someone who’s so malevolent that they don’t care.”
From Salon • Oct. 31, 2025
“What’s fun about Laura’s perspective is Cherry seems completely unhinged and that there’s a real malevolent undertone to her behavior,” Cooke says.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 10, 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
“Let me handle him,” urged a hatchet-faced man with sunken acrimonious eyes and a thin, malevolent mouth.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
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.
