evil

English Wikipedia has an article on:

evil

Wikipedia

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ē-vəl, ē-vĭl, IPA^(key): /ˈiːvɪl/, /ˈiːvl̩/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈivl̩/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːvəl

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz^[1] (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel, Gothic 𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌻𐍃 (ubils, “bad, evil”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂up(h₁)élos, a deverbal derivative of *h₂wep(h₁)-, *h₂wop(h₁)- (“treat badly”). Compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *uɸelos,^[2] and Hittite 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣 (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒉺𒀸 (huwappa-, “evil, badness”).^[3] 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”).^[4]

evil (comparative eviller or eviler or more evil, superlative evillest or evilest or most evil)

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.

   an evil plot to brainwash and even kill innocent people

   • 1864 August – 1866 January, Gaskell, chapter 47, in Wives and Daughters. An Every-day Story. , volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Smith, Elder and Co., , published 1866, →OCLC:

     For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.

   • 1916, Zane Grey, chapter 10, in The Border Legion‎, New York: Harper & Bros., page 147:

     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?”

   • 1989, Pilgrimage‎, volume 15, Human Sciences Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 7:

     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 […]

2. Morally corrupt.

   If something is evil, it is never mandatory.

   Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?

   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
     When death’s approach is seen so terrible.

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 41, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall‎:

     I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]

   • 1967, Chaim Potok, chapter 1, in The Chosen‎, New York: Fawcett Columbine, published 2003, page 14:

     To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]

3. Unpleasant, foul (of odor, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
   • 1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100,

     An Odoriferous Specifick is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no abide there

   • 1897, H G Wells, chapter 18, in The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance, New York, N.Y., London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, →OCLC:

     He awoke in an evil temper […]

   • 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282,

     It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.

   • 1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana‎, Penguin, published 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125:

     He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, chapter 1, in The Stone Diaries‎, Toronto: Random House of Canada, page 39:

     Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.

4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
   • c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, ”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Deuteronomy 22:19:

     […] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:

   • 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, .”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 89, lines 438-439:

     A little stay will bring some notice hither,
     For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, chapter 15, in The Good Earth‎, New York: Modern Library, published 1944, page 122:

     “ […] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”

5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.

   an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Matthew 7:18:

     A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

6. (computing, programming, slang) Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.

   Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.

• nefarious
• malicious
• malevolent
• wicked
• See also Thesaurus:evil

• good

English Wikipedia has an article on:

evil

Wikipedia

evil (countable and uncountable, plural evils)

1. Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.

   The evils of society include murder and theft.

   Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Ecclesiastes 9:3:

     The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.

   • 1918, W B Maxwell, chapter XVI, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     The preposterous altruism too! […] Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.

   • 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore”, in Strength to Love‎, New York: Pocket Books, published 1964, →OCLC, page 71:

     IS ANYTHING more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles project into every level of human existence. We may debate the origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its reality. Evil is stark, grim, and colossally real.

2. 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.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IX”, in Paradise Lost. , London: [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker ; nd by Robert Boulter ; nd Matthias Walker, , →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: , London: Basil Montagu Pickering , 1873, →OCLC:

     evils which our own misdeeds have wrought

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     The evil that men do lives after them.

3. (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     [The disease]Tis call'd the Euill.

   • 1711 March 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “TUESDAY, March 13, 1710–1711”, in The Spectator, number 329; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, , volume IV, New York, N.Y.: D Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC:

     He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.

     The spelling has been modernized.

• good

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfele (“badly, evilly”), a derivative of the adjective yfel (“bad, evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").

evil (comparative more evil, superlative most evil)

2. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book I”, in The Faerie Queene. , part I (books I–III), London: [Richard Field] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza ii, page 66:

     O what of Gods then boots it to be borne, / If old Aveugles ſonnes ſo euill heare?

3. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, 2 Peter 2:2:

     And many ſhall follow their pernicious wayes, by reaſon of whom the way of trueth ſhall be euill ſpoken of:

4. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

   It went evil with him.

   • 1570, William Lambard, quoting Horace, A Perambulation of Kent‎, published 1596, page 341:

     But (as the Poet ſaith) Malè ſarta gratia, nequicquam coit, & reſcinditur: Friendſhip, that is but euill peeced, will not ioine cloſe, but falleth aſunder againe:

This adverb was usually used in conjunction with speak.

• James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Evil, adv.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 350, column 2.

• Levi, Viel, live, veil, vile, vlei

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evil”)

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evilly”)