Ponerology

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The study of evil. uncountable

    "Christian ponerology is divided into two leading sections, that of sin or the bad participating in guilt, and that of death or the bad which has participated in the same."

Example

More examples

"Christian ponerology is divided into two leading sections, that of sin or the bad participating in guilt, and that of death or the bad which has participated in the same."

Etymology

From Ancient Greek πονηρός (ponērós, “grievous, knavish”) + -ology; compare Ancient Greek πονηρολογίᾱ (ponērologíā, “bad reasoning”).

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