evil
Usage
What are other ways to say evil?
Evil applies to that which violates or leads to the violation of moral law: evil practices. Ill now appears mainly in certain fixed expressions, with a milder implication than that in evil: ill will; ill-natured. Wicked implies willful and determined doing of what is very wrong: a wicked plan. Bad is the broadest and simplest term: a bad man; bad habits.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Nasty villains with evil plans to make us miserable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
She added: "I don't possess the hate and the evil in me to hurt people the way that you do."
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
We agree about the evil that demanded a constitutional response.
From Slate ● Jul. 2, 2026
Whether she directs that talent toward good or evil varies from episode to episode, but she embodies the scrappy, anarchic spirit of old-time New York.
From Salon ● Jul. 1, 2026
They were bulging with muscles and had pictures of evil eyeballs drawn right onto his skin.
From "The Many Assassinations of Samir, the Seller of Dreams" by Daniel Nayeri
A wary Tinseltown reluctantly coalesced around the Netflix bid, seeing it as the lesser of two evils, but Paramount's willingness to stump up ever greater sums eventually saw the streamer withdraw.
From Barron's ● May 13, 2026
Also, I am afraid your columns do not sufficiently extol the value of work, which Voltaire rightly claimed protects us from the evils of boredom, vice, and poverty.
From MarketWatch ● May 13, 2026
It encapsulates the well-founded belief that starting a war is likely to create unforeseen evils greater than the evil of the status quo.
From Salon ● Mar. 14, 2026
Denver Quarterly evidently bars material that lays bare social evils, since “we do not tolerate submissions that contain hate speech, bigotry, discrimination, or racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or ableist language or violence of any kind.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 28, 2026
They were ringing out all the evils of the old year so that the new one would have a fine beginning.
From "Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" by Eleanor Coerr
Vocabulary lists containing evil
Bush's Address on 9/11
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"Frankenstein" and "How Frankenstein Began"
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"The Flying Machine" by Ray Bradbury
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