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Evil   /ˈivəl/   Listen
adjective
Evil  adj.  
1.
Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil beast; and evil plant; an evil crop. "A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit."
2.
Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like. "Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, When death's approach is seen so terrible."
3.
Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days. "Because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel." "The owl shrieked at thy birth an evil sign." "Evil news rides post, while good news baits."
Evil eye, an eye which inflicts injury by some magical or fascinating influence. It is still believed by the ignorant and superstitious that some persons have the supernatural power of injuring by a look. "It almost led him to believe in the evil eye."
Evil speaking, speaking ill of others; calumny; censoriousness.
The evil one, the Devil; Satan. Note: Evil is sometimes written as the first part of a compound (with or without a hyphen). In many cases the compounding need not be insisted on. Examples: Evil doer or evildoer, evil speaking or evil-speaking, evil worker, evil wishing, evil-hearted, evil-minded.
Synonyms: Mischieveous; pernicious; injurious; hurtful; destructive; wicked; sinful; bad; corrupt; perverse; wrong; vicious; calamitous.


noun
Evil  n.  
1.
Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; opposed to good. "Evils which our own misdeeds have wrought." "The evil that men do lives after them."
2.
Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity. "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil."
3.
Malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil, the scrofula. (R.) "He (Edward the Confessor) was the first that touched for the evil."


adverb
Evil  adv.  In an evil manner; not well; ill; badly; unhappily; injuriously; unkindly. "It went evil with his house." "The Egyptians evil entreated us, and affected us."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Evil" Quotes from Famous Books



... not slow in resorting to the arts by which she was accustomed to seek either to avert the evil consequences of her own short-sighted policy, or to gain time to defeat the plans of her opponents.[449] The Huguenots received a deputation consisting of the chancellor, the Marshal de Vieilleville, and Jean de Morvilliers—three of the most influential ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... speak in the world, that they might have My joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... the sandal tree, imparting (while it falls) its aromatic flavor to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man rewarding evil with good, would be witty, did ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she could esteem Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby—in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... this darksome, foul, and evil-smelling place? Who was that forbidding-looking individual sitting there smoking under that swaying, smoky, dimly-burning, miserable apology for a lamp? And, finally, what had happened that my limbs should feel heavy as lead, and ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood


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