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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Evil \E*vil\ ([=e]"v'l) a. [OE. evel, evil, ifel, uvel, AS. yfel; akin to OFries, evel, D. euvel, OS. & OHG. ubil, G. ["u]bel, Goth. ubils, and perh. to E. over.]
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. --Matt. vii. 18.
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. --Shak.
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. --Deut. xxii. 19.
The owl shrieked at thy birth -- an evil sign. --Shak.
Evil news rides post, while good news baits. --Milton.
{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. --J. H. Newman.
{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.
Syn: Mischieveous; pernicious; injurious; hurtful; destructive; wicked; sinful; bad; corrupt; perverse; wrong; vicious; calamitous.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Evil \E"vil\, adverb In an evil manner; not well; ill; badly; unhappily; injuriously; unkindly. --Shak.
It went evil with his house. --1 Chron. vii. 23.
The Egyptians evil entreated us, and affected us. --Deut. xxvi. 6.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Evil \E"vil\ ([=e]"v'l) 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. --Milton.
The evil that men do lives after them. --Shak.
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. --Eccl. ix. 3.
3. malady or disease; especially in the phrase {king's evil}, the scrofula. [R.] --Shak.
He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil. --Addison.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
evil
adjective
1: morally bad or wrong; "evil purposes"; "an evil influence"; "evil deeds" [syn: {wicked}] [ant: {good}]
2: having the nature of vice [syn: {depraved}, {vicious}]
3: tending to cause great harm [syn: {harmful}, {injurious}]
4: having or exerting a malignant influence; "malevolent stars"; "a malefic force" [syn: {malefic}, {malevolent}, {malign}]
noun
1: morally objectionable behavior [syn: {immorality}, {wickedness}, {iniquity}]
2: that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones"- Shakespeare
3: the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice; "attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world" [syn: {evilness}] [ant: {good}, {good}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
364 Moby Thesaurus words for "evil": Loki, Nemesis, Set, Typhon, aberrant, abnormal, abominable, abomination, accursed, ado, affliction, agony, amorality, angry, anguish, annoyance, anxiety, apocalyptic, arrant, atrocious, atrocity, awful, backsliding, bad, badness, baleful, bane, baneful, base, baseness, befoulment, besetment, bitchy, black, blamable, blameworthy, blight, bodeful, boding, bother, breach, bugbear, burden, calamitous, calamity, can of worms, carnality, cataclysm, catastrophe, catastrophic, catty, corrupt, corruption, crime, crime against humanity, criminal, criminality, crooked, crushing burden, crying evil, curse, damage, damaging, damnable, dark, deadly, deadly sin, death, debt, defilement, degeneracy, degradation, deleterious, delinquency, delinquent, depraved, depravity, dereliction, despiteful, despoliation, destruction, destructive, detriment, detrimental, deviant, devilry, deviltry, diablerie, diabolism, difficult, dire, dirty, disadvantage, disagreeable, disaster, disastrous, disease, disgrace, disgraceful, disgusting, dishonest, dishonorable, distasteful, doomful, dreadful, dreary, enormity, error, evil nature, evil-minded, evil-starred, evildoing, evilness, execrable, failure, fateful, fault, felonious, felony, fetid, flagitious, flagitiousness, flagrant, foreboding, foul, foulness, genocide, ghastly, gloomy, great ado, grievance, grisly, guilty act, hard, hardly the thing, harm, harmful, hateful, havoc, headache, heavy sin, heinous, heinousness, hideous, horrible, horrid, hurt, hurtful, ignominious, ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, illegal, immoral, immorality, improper, impropriety, impurity, inaccurate, inappropriate, inauspicious, inconvenience, incorrect, indecorous, indiscretion, inexpedient, inexpiable sin, infamous, infamy, infection, infelicitous, inferior, infliction, iniquitous, iniquity, injurious, injury, injustice, insidious, invalid, knavery, knavish, lapse, lethal, loathsome, low, lowering, malefaction, malefic, maleficence, maleficent, malevolent, malfeasance, malign, malignant, malum, matter, menacing, mephitic, minor wrong, mischief, mischievous, misconduct, misdeed, misdemeanor, misery, misfeasance, misfortune, monstrous, moral delinquency, mortal sin, nasty, naughty, nefarious, nefariousness, nemesis, nonfeasance, not done, not the thing, noxious, obliquity, obscene, of evil portent, off-base, off-color, offense, offensive, ominous, omission, open wound, out-of-line, outrage, pain, peccability, peccadillo, peccancy, peccant, peck of troubles, perfidious, pernicious, pest, pestilence, pestilential, plague, poison, poisonous, pollution, portending, portentous, problem, prodigality, profligacy, putrid, rancorous, rank, recidivism, repellent, reprehensible, reprobacy, reprobate, repugnant, repulsive, revolting, ruin, ruinous, running sore, sacrilegious, satanism, scandal, scandalous, scourge, sea of troubles, shame, shameful, shameless, sin, sin of commission, sin of omission, sinful, sinful act, sinfulness, sinister, slip, somber, sorrow, spiteful, stinking, suffering, terrible, the worst, thorn, threatening, torment, tort, toxic, toxin, traitorous, transgression, treacherous, trespass, trip, trouble, trying, turpitude, ugly, unangelicalness, unchastity, uncleanness, underhanded, undue, unfavorable, unfit, unfitting, unforgivable, unfortunate, ungodliness, ungoodness, unhealthy, unkind, unlawful, unlucky, unmorality, unpardonable, unpleasant, unprincipled, unpromising, unpropitious, unrighteous, unrighteousness, unsaintliness, unscrupulous, unseemly, unskillful, unspeakable, unsuitable, untoward, unutterable sin, unvirtuousness, unworthy, venial sin, venom, vexation, vice, vicious, viciousness, vile, vileness, villainous, villainy, virulent, visitation, wantonness, waywardness, wicked, wickedness, woe, woeful, worry, wrathful, wrong, wrongdoing, wrongful
From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:
evil adjective As used by hackers, implies that some system, program, person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the {cretinous}/{losing}/{brain-damaged} series, 'evil' does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a {Blue Glue} interface but decided it was too evil to deal with." "{TECO} is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/. Compare {evil and rude}.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
evil As used by a {hacker}, implies that some system, program, person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the cretinous, {losing}, {brain-damaged} series, "evil" does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is more an aesthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We thought about adding a {Blue Glue} interface but decided it was too evil to deal with." "{TECO} is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/. Compare {evil and rude}. [{Jargon File}] (1994-12-12)
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |