Nefarious

//nɪˈfɛəɹi.əs//

Synonyms for "nefarious" (193 found)

Ranked by relevance and common usage.

Closest matches (39)

evil villainous abject abominable arrant atrocious awful bad base beastly beggarly beneath contempt black blamable blameworthy brutal cheesy contemptible corrupt criminal

Show 8 more words

crummy damnable dark debased degenerate degraded deplorable depraved

Adjective(11 words)

abandoned arrant bad bad apple bad seed baleful baneful base dark deleterious depraved

Strong matches (58)

Related words (96)

Related word relations

OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.

4 relation types

Synonyms

2 entries

evil villainous

derived

3 entries

nefariously nefariousness unnefarious

related to

6 entries

criminal noteworthy notorious sinful villainous wicked

similar

1 entries

wicked

Translations

62 translations across 20 languages.

Arabic

1 entries

شَائِن adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Bulgarian

1 entries

престъпен adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Dutch

3 entries

berucht adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
misdadig adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
schandelijk adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Esperanto

2 entries

malfarinda adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
skandala adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Finnish

4 entries

katala adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
paha adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
paheellinen adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
pirullinen adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

French

4 entries

infâme adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
malfaisant adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
malveillant adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
maléfique adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

German

4 entries

berüchtigt adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
bösartig adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
böse adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
ruchlos adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Hungarian

2 entries

alávaló adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
gyalázatos adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Irish

1 entries

bithiúnta adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Italian

4 entries

diabolico adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
infernale adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
nefasto adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
scellerato adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Korean

1 entries

사악(邪惡)하다 adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Latin

1 entries

nefārius adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Norwegian Bokmål

4 entries

avskyelig adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
ondsinnet adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
ryggesløs adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
skjendig adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Plautdietsch

1 entries

schentlich adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Portuguese

1 entries

nefasto adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Romanian

4 entries

abject adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
infam adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
păcătos adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
vicios adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Russian

4 entries

бесче́стный adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
гну́сный adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
ме́рзкий adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
нече́стный adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Spanish

4 entries

feo adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
infame adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
inicuo adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
malvado adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Swedish

2 entries

gudlös adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
skändlig adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Ukrainian

4 entries

злочинний adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
нечесний adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
нечестивий adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)
ниций adj (sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics)

Sample sentences

14 total sentences available.

Tatoeba + Wiktionary

There's nothing nefarious going on here.

Source: tatoeba (1629926)

He's always thwarting my nefarious plans.

Source: tatoeba (5282416)

The Salt Lake City police department asked that all criminal activities/nefarious behavior cease until further notice due to COVID-19.

Source: tatoeba (8634467)

The police department asked all criminal activities and nefarious behavior to cease.

Source: tatoeba (8634469)

Showing 4 of 14 available sentences.

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