Synonyms for evil

noun

  1. The quality of being evil

    sin, wickedness, depravity, crime, sinfulness, corruption, vice, immorality, iniquity, knavery, perversity, badness, villainy, vileness, baseness, meanness, infamy, heinousness, enormity, criminality, nefariousness, malignity, impiety, malevolence, viciousness, wrong, degeneracy, debauchery, decadence, looseness, lewdness, licentiousness, dissoluteness, wantonness, grossness, turpitude, wrongdoing, darkness, foulness, degradation, worm in the apple, the devil within one, obscenity, profligacy, devilry, diabolism, fiendishness.

    Antonyms virtue*, good, goodness.

  2. A harmful or malicious action

    ill, harm, injury, damage, mischief, misfortune, wrong, scandal, calamity, pollution, contamination, catastrophe, blow, disaster, plague, curse, outrage, atrocity, abomination, foul play, ill wind*, crying shame*, machinations of the Devil*.

See evil in Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus II


adjective
  1. Morally objectionable:

    bad, black, immoral, iniquitous, peccant, reprobate, sinful, vicious, wicked, wrong. See right
  2. Causing harm or injury:

    bad, deleterious, detrimental, harmful, hurtful, ill, injurious, mischievous. See help
  3. Bringing, predicting, or characterized by misfortune:

    bad, ill, inauspicious, unfavorable, unpropitious. See luck
  4. Characterized by intense ill will or spite:

    black, despiteful, hateful, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, mean2, nasty, poisonous, spiteful, venomous, vicious, wicked. (Slang) bitchy. See attitude
noun
  1. That which is morally bad or objectionable:

    iniquity, peccancy, sin, wickedness, wrong. See right
  2. A wicked act or wicked behavior:

    crime, deviltry, diablerie, evildoing, immorality, iniquity, misdeed, offense, peccancy, sin, wickedness, wrong, wrongdoing. See right
  3. Whatever is destructive or harmful:

    bad, badness, ill. See help
  4. A cause of suffering or harm:

    affliction, bane, curse, ill, plague, scourge, woe. See help

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