sinful
Americanadjective
adjective
-
having committed or tending to commit sin
a sinful person
-
characterized by or being a sin
a sinful act
Other Word Forms
- sinfully adverb
- sinfulness noun
- unsinful adjective
- unsinfully adverb
- unsinfulness noun
Etymology
Origin of sinful
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English synfull. See sin 1, -ful
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.
Behavioural science can also impact your choice on more sinful things too.
From BBC • Jan. 28, 2026
The South Carolina secession convention declared the state was leaving the Union because northerners “have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery.”
From Slate • Sep. 24, 2025
Nevertheless, some of his more proximate misdeeds are effectively used to make clear that Mantel's antihero is, in the denouement of his life, fully alert to his sinful state.
From Salon • Mar. 23, 2025
In its day, the Feb. 1, 1922, unsolved murder of director William Desmond Taylor left Americans both fascinated and morally high-horsing about those sinful Hollywood people.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2024
Four treasure chests he’d been ignoring because somewhere in the back of his mind he thought taking things without permission was sinful.
From "The Dead and the Gone" by Susan Beth Pfeffer
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.
