noun
-
the condition or quality of being malign, malevolent, or deadly
-
(often plural) a malign or malicious act or feeling
Synonym Usage
See malevolence.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of malignity
1350–1400; Middle English malignitee, from Latin malignitās. See malign, -ity
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.
See Examples For:
Intimately acquainted with Richard’s malignity, these ruined royals know only too well the toll of his depraved machinations.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 26, 2026
His malignity and psychopathology seem to attract followers when these same characteristics should repulse people.
From Salon ● Mar. 4, 2024
Some resistance was more overtly political; the critic Elaine Showalter, on Twitter, decried a plotline of the “saintly academic hero tormented by motiveless malignity of his despicable wife and other monsters.”
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 11, 2019
It bore the painting of a woman of strange beauty, but the dark eyes stared into vacancy with a cold malignity of expression.
From Slate ● Oct. 14, 2018
There is a great deal of gossip that has no malignity in it.
From Health, Happiness, and Longevity Health without medicine: happiness without money: the result, longevity by Louis Philippe McCarty
A dozen, a score of the pallid malignities seemed to pour in toward the center of the grove, where John Parry’s ghost marshaled his companions to fight them off.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities of the palace.
From Queen Victoria by Giles Lytton Strachey
The believer in these processes thinks that certain acts possess particular efficacies beyond those evident to his observation and reason; and that peculiar malignities are to be expected as the consequence of certain other acts.
From Applied Eugenics by Paul Popenoe
Magnificent as was his defence, it availed him nothing against such a combination of malignities; even his few friends, losing courage, failed to support him.
From Aspects and Impressions by Edmund Gosse
"What malignities and slanders," exclaims Diaz, "were now circulated against Cortez by his enemies in Mexico!"
From Hernando Cortez Makers of History by John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
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