April 04, 2008
Thursday, 3rd April 2008 : Today's Word is ...
Malicious
Pronunciation : ma-lísh-ess
1. motivated by or resulting from a desire to cause harm or pain to another
2. having the nature of or resulting from malice
3. deliberately harmful
4. characterized by intense ill will or spite
1175–1225 - malicius - Latin - malitiōsus - badly, ill
awful, bad-natured, baleful, beastly, bitchy, bitter, catty, cussed, deleterious, despiteful, detrimental, envious, evil, evil-minded, green, green-eyed, gross, ill-disposed, injurious, jealous, low, malevolent, malign, malignant, mean, mischievous, nasty, noxious, ornery, pernicious, pesky, petty, poison-pen, poisonous, rancorous, resentful, spiteful, uncool, vengeful, venomous, vicious, virulent, wicked
Malevolent suggests deep and lasting dislike.
Malicious usually means petty and spiteful.
benevolent, friendly, good, kind, likeable, sympathetic, thoughtful
• There was no reason to write on the walls except to be malicious.
• Find out the source of this malicious gossip.
• Malicious injury to the property of another is a punishable offence.
• I quickly learned to be afraid of him and his malicious pranks.
• malice : Noun
• maliciousness : Noun
• maliciously : Adverb