Maleficence

//məˈlɛfɪsəns// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
harmfulness or mischief. countable, uncountable
2
the quality or nature of being harmful or evil wordnet
3
doing or causing evil wordnet

Synonyms

balefulness cussedness devilment devilry evil harmfulness

Antonyms

benevolence beneficence nonmaleficence

Etymology

From Italian maleficenza or Middle French maleficence or directly from Latin maleficentia.

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