Malice

//ˈmælɪs// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune. uncountable, usually

    "Your voice positively drips malice."

  2. 2
    the quality of threatening evil wordnet
  3. 3
    An intention to do injury to another party, which in many jurisdictions is a distinguishing factor between the crimes of murder and manslaughter. uncountable, usually

    "The question that would have been before the jury was whether Fox committed “actual malice” in airing the claims. That required Dominion to show whether key decision makers were aware the claims were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth."

  4. 4
    feeling a need to see others suffer wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To intend to cause harm; to bear malice.

    "Thou blinded God (quod I) forgive me this offence, / Unwittingly I went about, to malice thy pretence."

Synonyms

All synonyms
ill willmalevolencewickednessabhorrenceabominationacrimony

Example

More examples

"There was no malice in what he did."

Etymology

From Middle English malice, borrowed from Old French malice, from Latin malitia (“badness, bad quality, ill-will, spite”), from malus (“bad”).

Related phrases

actual maliceconstructive malicemalice aforethoughtmalice in factmalice in lawmalice murdermalice prepensemute of malice

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