evil
/ˈiːvəl/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.74 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
2
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Intending to harm; malevolent.
adj
Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
noun
Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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 […]"
- "If something is evil, it is never mandatory."
Etymology
From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂up(h₁)élos, a deverbal derivative of *h₂wep(h₁)-, *h₂wop(h₁)- (“treat badly”). See -le for the supposed suffix. Alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h₃ewp- (“down, up, over”). Cognates Cognate with Dutch euvel (“evil”), German übel (“bad, evil”), German Low German övel (“evil”), Luxembourgish iwwel (“queasy, nauseous; bad”), Gothic 𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌻𐍃 (ubils, “bad, evil”). Compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *uɸelos, and Hittite 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣 (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒉺𒀸 (huwappa-, “evil, badness”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
eviller (comparative)
eviler (comparative)
more evil (comparative)
evillest (superlative)
evilest (superlative)
most evil (superlative)
evils (plural)