villain
Americannoun
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villains
plural
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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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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”; see origin at villa, -an
Explanation
A villain is a bad person — real or made up. In books, movies, current events, or history, the villain is the character who does mean, evil things on purpose. Today a villain is a wicked person, whether in fact or fiction. In the 1300s, villain described a low-born rustic. It came from the Medieval Latin word villanus, or farmhand. Just why a word would evolve from meaning farmer into evildoer is a little mysterious, although it probably has to do with farmers not being chivalrous, like the knights who were so admired in those days.
Vocabulary lists containing villain
"Black Panther" Lingo
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Superhero Lexicon
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"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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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.
See Examples For:
But only Curry could create the kind of monster Scott wanted – a villain emanating something more complex than evil.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026
"I wanted a villain that was different," said director Chase, who was looking to create a charismatic demon.
From Barron's ● Aug. 19, 2026
But this tyrannical posturing reminds me not of some low-rent X-Men film but rather Syndrome, the villain in the Pixar classic “The Incredibles.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2026
Is it the main villain in One Thousand and One Nights?
From Slate ● Aug. 15, 2026
She doesn’t know a thing about me, yet she wants to use one song to make me into the big bad villain who is influencing her precious son.
From "On the Come Up" by Angie Thomas
"It's definitely one of the villains of recycling," said Ambarish Mitra, co-founder of Greyparrot, a waste analytics company which helps recovery facilities.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Nasty villains with evil plans to make us miserable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
I challenge you to watch the movie today and not place her up there with all-time L.A. movie villains, sharing the stage with Noah Cross, Keyser Söze, Hans Gruber and ...
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
DC Studios rebooted its cinematic universe with last year's well-received Superman, which followed a string of underperforming movies based on the comic company's collection of heroes and villains.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
"Yeah, villains always think they're doing things for the greater good."
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
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.
