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:
Is L.A. the villain, the scapegoat, or both?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026
The movie’s biggest reveal involves the identity of the villain played by Sadie Sink — and plenty of questions remain about her future and what her appearance means for a certain fan-favorite mutant superhero team.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026
I'm glad the message of this story is that, even though I'm the villain, everyone's sticking up for the national park.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
Bardem’s villain is built more like an aughts-edition antihero.
From Salon ● Jul. 17, 2026
We were residing just ten paces from someone who was quite possibly a villain of the foulest kind.
From "The Detective's Assistant" by Kate Hannigan
"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
Cinderella-style villains aside, companies doing their diligence may reach out to people you wish they wouldn’t.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
The best horror villains are not only terrifying but complicated, their destructive persona hiding a far more vulnerable being underneath.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
But there’s that moment when you realize they’re not superheroes, or villains.
From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman
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.
