Pronunciations (5)
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/ˈiːvəl/
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[ˈɪi̯vəl]
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[ˈɪi̯vl̩]
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/ˈiːvɪl/
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[ˈɪi̯vɪl]
Pronunciation notes
- obsolete
Adjective
Intending to harm; malevolent.
- Examples
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an evil plot to brainwash and even kill innocent people
For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.
More examples (3)
He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians.
2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351, “Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.” “You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”
He tells secret dreams to strangers , imagines he can achieve art without discipline , regards all boundaries as evil , ignores ancestors , wants comfort and merging , believes cunning is wrong , and as a scholar or artist doesn't […]
Morally corrupt.
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If something is evil, it is never mandatory.
Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?
More examples (3)
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death’s approach is seen so terrible.
I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]
To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]
Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
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More examples (1)
1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100, An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]
He awoke in an evil temper […]
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1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282, It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.
He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.
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Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.
Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
- Examples
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The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;
[…] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:
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A little stay will bring some notice hither, For evil news rides post, while good news baits.
“[…] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”
I cannot overestimate how much it meant to me to have the support of my brothers in BWMT/MACT both in and out of prison while I was laid up with pneumocystis pneumonia during those dog days of August 1987. My wall is decked with cards, letters, and pictures from those evil days, and my support system included rides, flowers, candy, magazines of every description, and lots of hugs from gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.
Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
Usage- Obsolete
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an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.
Usage- Slang
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Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.
Noun
Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The evils of society include murder and theft.
Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.
More examples (3)
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.
The preposterous altruism too![…]Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.
IS ANYTHING more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles project into every level of human existence. We may debate the origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its reality. Evil is stark, grim, and colossally real.
Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
Usage- Countable
- Uncountable
- Examples
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evils which our own misdeeds have wrought
The evil that men do lives after them.
A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
- Examples
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[The disease]Tis call'd the Euill.
He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.
Adverb
wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
Usage- Obsolete
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O what of Gods then boots it to be borne, / If old Aveugles ſonnes ſo euill heare?
injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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And many ſhall follow their pernicious wayes, by reaſon of whom the way of trueth ſhall be euill ſpoken of:
badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.
Usage- Obsolete
- Examples
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It went evil with him.
More examples (1)
But (as the Poet ſaith) Malè ſarta gratia, nequicquam coit, & reſcinditur: Friendſhip, that is but euill peeced, will not ioine cloſe, but falleth aſunder againe:
Adjective
morally bad or wrong
- Antonyms
- Examples
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evil purposes
an evil influence
More examples (1)
evil deeds
having the nature of vice
- Synonyms
having or exerting a malignant influence
- Synonyms
- Examples
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malevolent stars
a malefic force
Noun
morally objectionable behavior
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice
- Synonyms
- Antonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world