prefix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Prefix

1. 1
   bad, badly; evil morpheme

   "malism, malinfluence"

2. 2
   bad, badly; unhealthy, harmful morpheme

   "maleffect"

3. 3
   bad, badly; unpleasant morpheme

   "malodor"

4. 4
   bad, badly; incorrect morpheme

   "maldifferentiation"

5. 5
   bad, badly; incomplete, unfinished morpheme

   "maldescent"

Show 3 more definitions

6. 6
   bad, badly; poorly, deficiently morpheme

   "malfed, malnourished, malcirculation"

7. 7
   unintentional, mistaken, accidental morpheme

   "malcommunication"

8. 8
   not morpheme

   "maladherence, malcontent"

Synonyms

All synonyms

dysmisaandishypo

Example

More examples

"malfed, malnourished, malcirculation"

Etymology

From Old French mal- from Latin male (“badly”), from malus (“bad”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.