villain
Americannoun
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a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.
- Synonyms:
- scamp, rogue, rapscallion, rascal, knave
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a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
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a person or thing considered to be the cause of something bad.
Fear is the villain that can sabotage our goals.
noun
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a wicked or malevolent person
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(in a novel, play, film, etc) the main evil character and antagonist to the hero
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humorous a mischievous person; rogue
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slang:police a criminal
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history a variant spelling of villein
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obsolete an uncouth person; boor
Other Word Forms
- subvillain noun
- undervillain noun
- villainess noun
Etymology
Origin of villain
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English vilein, vilain “churlish rustic, serf,” from Middle French, from Vulgar Latin and Medieval Latin villānus “a farm servant, farmhand”; villa, -an
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.
As the show established last season, the people we’re conditioned to view as villains and heels are not necessarily Traitors.
From Salon
To those who paint Baker the villain, he is a destroyer of beloved retail brands.
“Yes, the queer community has villains, we have people who are seeking to oppress us,” Rice says in the film.
From Los Angeles Times
We were residing just ten paces from someone who was quite possibly a villain of the foulest kind.
From Literature
The owners who pack up their teams and leave are forever villains in their old markets.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
