malignity

His Cyrano is the play’s hero, even if the character’s psychological limitations are as much a factor in the story as the machinations of De Guiche, whose malignity is sent up in Nathanson’s flamboyantly comic turn.

But one does not have to credit Beijing with any unique malignity to believe it is imprudent for China to effectively operate a global monopoly on green technology.

His malignity and psychopathology seem to attract followers when these same characteristics should repulse people.

“Mr. Spoto dutifully records all the meanness and malignity of Hitchcock’s character — such as the strong signs of a sadistic attitude toward women,” Mr. Grenier wrote, “but, since he worships Hitchcock’s art, he goes to sometimes desperate lengths to show how all these character failings ‘enrich’ his work.”

It was reptilian, insensate, Coleridge’s monster of “motiveless malignity.”