malicious
adjective
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Malicious, Malevolent, and Malice
Malicious and malevolent are close in meaning, since both refer to ill will that desires to see someone else suffer. But while malevolent suggests deep and lasting dislike, malicious usually means petty and spiteful. Malicious gossipers are often simply envious of a neighbor's good fortune. Vandals may take malicious pleasure in destroying and defacing property but usually don't truly hate the owners. Malice is an important legal concept, which has to be proved in order to convict someone of certain crimes such as first-degree murder.
Examples of malicious in a Sentence
Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review, 5 Nov. 2000
A cunning and malicious crook who suckered him without half trying.
—Philip Roth, American Pastoral, 1997
Frank sensed her discomfort and took a certain malicious pleasure in it, enacting all the while his perfect innocence.
—John Updike, The Afterlife, 1994
a malicious distortion of the truth
the neighborhood chatterbox has again been spreading malicious gossip
Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy Report, Fox News, 11 Mar. 2025
Fraudsters are increasingly using generative AI to write convincing phishing emails, improve deepfakes, and draft new forms of malicious code — making scams harder to detect.
—Sam Sabin, Axios, 11 Mar. 2025
Every societal ill was the result of an intentional harm, a single malicious or misinformed actor, and every harm could be redressed by the proper application of the law.
—Sarah Lustbader, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2025
Github was the platform primarily used to host the malicious payload stages, but Discord and Dropbox were also used.
—Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 7 Mar. 2025
See All Example Sentences for malicious
Cite this Entry
“Malicious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malicious. Accessed 16 Mar. 2025.
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malicious
adjective
Legal Definition
malicious
adjective
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