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:
“She had, she said, had evil thoughts about us.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
Former UN rights chief Zeid Ra'ad al Hussein described him as "the epitome of evil".
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
But only Curry could create the kind of monster Scott wanted – a villain emanating something more complex than evil.
From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026
Currently residing in the Further, Elise explains that Cyrus and his cronies plan to unleash their evil in the land of the living.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026
This certainly wasn’t the all-powerful evil item of doom they had all been expecting.
From "Half Upon a Time" by James Riley
And coming from the field of disinformation in particular, A.I. is a Pandora’s box of yet-to-be-imagined evils.
From Slate ● Aug. 26, 2026
A wary Tinseltown reluctantly lined up behind Netflix as the lesser of two evils, only to watch Paramount keep raising its bid until the streamer walked away.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 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
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
Of two evils, she chose the one that struck her as the lesser.
From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende
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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