DictionaryAI

evil

EE-vuhl/ˈivəl/UKEE-vil/ˈiːvɪl/

Noun pluralevils (some meanings)

9 meanings of evil

Practice

  1. 1
    wickedadjective
    Deeply wicked and immoral, especially wanting or meaning to cause harm to others.

    The novel's villain is genuinely evil, taking pleasure in the suffering of others.

    History records leaders so evil that their names became bywords for cruelty.

    UsageUsually compared with more evil and most evil; eviller and evillest also exist but are much rarer.

    Similarwicked, malevolent, villainous, cruel, vile

    Oppositegood, virtuous, kind, benevolent

    Note

    The judgment concerns a whole moral condition and the conduct that shows it, as in Shakespeare's "evil life" in Henry VI, Part 2, or the "evil habits" a father passes to his son in Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • William Shakespeare wrote Henry VI, Part 2. gutenberg.org
    • The phrase "evil life" occurs in Henry VI, Part 2; King Henry speaks it. gutenberg.org
    • Anne Brontë wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. en.wikisource.org
    • The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was first published in 1848, consistent with its first-edition title page. en.wikisource.org
    • The novel contains "evil habits" in Helen's account of habits her son's father taught him. en.wikisource.org
  2. 2
    wickednessnoununcountable
    Moral badness; the wickedness or malevolent force that stands opposed to good.

    The film explores how ordinary people can be drawn toward evil.

    Philosophers have long debated the origins of evil in human nature.

    UsageWith no article for wickedness in general (good and evil, the problem of evil); an evil or evils for particular wrongs.

    Similarwickedness, sin, wrongdoing, immorality, vice

    Oppositegood, goodness, virtue

    Note

    The noun works as both a mass noun and a count noun, and its focus shifts between them. Uncountable, it names wickedness as a force: "full of evil," in the King James Bible of 1611, or the injunction "Resist not evil." Countable, "the evils of society" are particular wrongs such as murder and theft. Use the bare form for the abstraction and the count form, an evil or evils, for specific wrongs.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    source of harmnouncountable or uncountable
    Anything that causes suffering, harm, or injury, or that takes away a being's happiness or good.

    Disease and famine are among the worst evils that can befall a community.

    Reformers worked to abolish the social evil of child labor.

    UsageCommon in set phrases: a necessary evil, the lesser of two evils, the evils of war or poverty.

    Similarill, scourge, affliction, blight, curse

    Oppositeblessing, benefit

    Note

    Here the noun measures suffering rather than sin. An evil is whatever harms a being or takes away its good, whether or not anyone intended it. Milton's Paradise Lost speaks of "evils which our own misdeeds have wrought," where the evils are the consequences and the misdeeds are their cause. When wrongdoing itself is meant, the "wickedness" sense is the one in play.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

    • John Milton's Paradise Lost contains the quoted wording and presents the evils as consequences caused by misdeeds. gutenberg.org
  4. 4
    adjective
    Bringing about or warning of sorrow, harm, or disaster; unlucky or unfavorable.

    The settlers set out at an evil hour, just as the floods began to rise.

    An evil wind carried the sickness from one town to the next.

    UsageMostly heard in set phrases such as evil days, an evil hour and an evil omen.

    Similarunlucky, inauspicious, ill-fated, ominous, ill

    Oppositelucky, auspicious, favorable

    Note

    An omen, a season or a piece of news is evil in this sense because of what it brings, not because of any malice. In Henry VI, Part 3, Shakespeare's owl shrieking at a birth is "an evil sign," and Pearl S. Buck writes of "these evil times of famine and war."

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 3 describes an owl shrieking at a birth as an evil sign. King Henry speaks the line to Richard. folger.edu
    • The quoted words occur in Pearl S. Buck's writing, in chapter 15 of The Good Earth. en.wiktionary.org

Practice

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Origins

Meanings 1–7, 9

From Middle English yvel, from Old English yfel, going back to Proto-Germanic *ubilaz, whose further source is disputed: one account links it to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to 'treat badly'; another reads an ancestral form as 'going over or beyond acceptable limits'. It is cognate with Dutch euvel, German übel ('bad, evil'), and Gothic ubils ('bad, evil').

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

  • Evil descends from Middle English yvel and Old English yfel through Proto-Germanic *ubilaz. en.wiktionary.org
  • That interpretation belongs to the proposed derived form *upélos; the underlying root is glossed 'down, up, over'. en.wiktionary.org
  • Evil is cognate with Dutch euvel. en.wiktionary.org
  • German übel is related to evil and means 'bad, evil'. en.wiktionary.org
  • Gothic ubils is a cognate meaning 'bad, evil'. en.wiktionary.org
Meaning 8

The adverb came through Middle English yvel from Old English yfele ("badly, evilly"). The Old English form was made from the adjective yfel ("bad, evil"). Later, people often understood the adverb as a noun, for example in "to speak evil."

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

  • The adverb derives through Middle English yvel from Old English yfele, meaning ‘badly, evilly’. en.wiktionary.org
  • Old English yfele was derived from the adjective yfel, meaning ‘bad, evil’. en.wiktionary.org
  • The adverb was often reinterpreted as a noun in later English, including in ‘to speak evil’. en.wiktionary.org