Malicious gossip spreads like wildfire. I guess that's why they say bad news travels fast.
Source: tatoeba (28579)
Malicious
//məˈlɪʃəs//
Synonyms for "malicious" (135 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Closest matches (27)
Strong matches (41)
Related words (67)
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
Antonyms
1 entriesSynonyms
2 entriesderived
10 entriesderived from
1 entriesrelated to
4 entriessimilar
22 entriesShowing 16 of 22 words.
Translations
115 translations across 39 languages.
Afrikaans
2 entries- kwaadaardig adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- kwaadaardig adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Ancient Greek
2 entries- κακοήθης adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- κακοήθης adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Armenian
2 entries- նենգ adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- նենգ adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Azerbaijani
4 entries- pis məqsədli adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- pisniyyət adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- pisniyyətli adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- qərəzli adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Bulgarian
3 entries- зло́бен adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- зло́стен adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- злонамерен adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Catalan
2 entries- maliciós adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- maliciós adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Chinese Mandarin
4 entries- 心懷叵測的 /心怀叵测的 adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- 心懷叵測的 /心怀叵测的 adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- 惡意的 /恶意的 adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- 惡意的 /恶意的 adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Czech
4 entries- zlomyslný adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- zlovolný adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- záludný adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- škodolibý adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Danish
1 entries- maliciøs adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Dutch
3 entries- boos adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- kwaad adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- kwaadaardig adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Esperanto
1 entries- malica adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Estonian
1 entries- pahatahtlik adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Finnish
3 entries- ilkeä adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- pahansuopa adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- pahantahtoinen adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
French
2 entries- malveillant adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- mauvais adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Galician
1 entries- malicioso adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
German
4 entries- boshaft adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- bösartig adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- böse adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- böswillig adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Greek
4 entries- κακεντρεχής adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- κακοήθης adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- κακόβουλος adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- μοχθηρός adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Ido
2 entries- mal-vol-anta adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- maligna adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Indonesian
3 entries- berniat jahat adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- hasad adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- jahat adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Irish
1 entries- mailíseach adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Italian
4 entries- cattivo adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- doloso adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- malevole adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- malizioso adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Japanese
1 entries- 悪意のある adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Macedonian
4 entries- злобен adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- злонамерен adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- малициозен adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- недобронамерен adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Malay
1 entries- berniat jahat adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Māori
4 entries- hīkaka adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- kikokiko adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- waniwani adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- whakakinokino adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Norwegian
1 entries- ondsinnet adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Ottoman Turkish
2 entries- یامان adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- یامان adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Polish
4 entries- umyślnie szkodliwy adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- wrogi adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- złowrogi adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- złośliwy adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Portuguese
2 entries- maldoso adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- malicioso adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Romanian
2 entries- malițios adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- răutăcios adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Russian
4 entries- зло́бный adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- зло́стный adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- злой adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- злонаме́ренный adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Sanskrit
1 entries- दुर्जन adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Serbo-Croatian
4 entries- mȁliciōzan adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- mȁliciōzan adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- zlonámjēran adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- zlȍban adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Slovak
3 entries- zlomyseľný adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- zloprajný adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- zlovoľný adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Slovene
3 entries- hudoben adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- zloben adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- škodoželjen adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Spanish
1 entries- maligno adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Swedish
4 entries- elak adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- illasinnad adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
- illasinnad adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- illvillig adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Turkish
3 entries- kötü amaçlı adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- kötü niyetli adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- kötücül adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
Ukrainian
2 entries- зловми́сний adj (deliberately harmful; spiteful)
- злі́сний adj (of, pertaining to, or as a result of malice or spite)
Sample sentences
12 total sentences available.
Beware of 'One Ring' malicious nuisance calls!!
Source: tatoeba (328158)
There are frequent instances of malicious door-to-door selling, such as pushing water purifiers on people after carrying out water quality tests without permission.
Source: tatoeba (329388)
Even if malicious gossip is being circulated around someone, it doesn't necessarily mean that the value of that person will be diminished.
Source: tatoeba (534702)
Showing 4 of 12 available sentences.
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.