evil

Meaning

Adj

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.
2. Morally corrupt.
3. Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
6. (slang) Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.

Noun

1. (countable, uncountable) Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
2. (countable, uncountable) 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.
3. (countable, obsolete, uncountable) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.

Adv

1. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
2. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
3. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

Synonyms

bad

👎

wicked

wickedness

harm

vicious

wrong

misfortune

badness

calamity

sin

vile

vice

nasty

malicious

ill

🤢

immoral

harmful

base

sinister

mischief

mean

injury

foul

sinful

disaster

hostile

malevolence

malevolent

cruel

ugly

crime

spiteful

depraved

miserable

spite

poor

devilish

malign

hatred

malignity

evilness

malignant

villainous

criminal

malefic

immorality

diabolical

iniquity

black

fiendish

Translations

malo

👎

mauvais

👎

mal

mal

böse

méchant

kwaad

😠

Übel

cattivo

👎

κακός

male

mau

👎

slecht

👎

malvagio

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈiːvɪl/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: yvel

Inherited from Old English: yfel

Cognate with Saterland Frisian: eeuwel

Cognate with Dutch: euvel

Cognate with Low German: övel

Cognate with German: übel

Cognate with Gothic: 𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌻𐍃

Cognate with Old Irish: fel

Cognate with Hittite: 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣

In summary

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”).