malice
English
Etymology
From Middle English [Term?], borrowed from Old French malice, from Latin malitia (“badness, bad quality, ill-will, spite”), from malus (“bad”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: măl'ĭs, IPA(key): /ˈmælɪs/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
malice (usually uncountable, plural malices)
- Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune.
- 1981, Philip K. Dick, Valis, →ISBN, page 67:
- […] not only was there no gratitude (which he could psychologically handle) but downright malice showed itself instead.
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- (law) An intention to do injury to another party, which in many jurisdictions is a distinguishing factor between the crimes of murder and manslaughter.
Synonyms
- (intention to harm): evilness, ill will, wickedness
Derived terms
- malicious
Related terms
- malady
Translations
intention to harm
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Further reading
- malice in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
- malice in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Verb
malice (third-person singular simple present malices, present participle malicing, simple past and past participle maliced)
- To intend to cause harm; to bear malice.
- 1557, Howard, Henry, “Complaint of a lover that defied Love and was by Love after the more tormented”, in Songes and Sonettes:
- Thou blinded God (quod I) forgive me this offence, / Unwittingly I went about, to malice thy pretence.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, OCLC 932900760, page 477:
- Who on the other ſide did ſeeme ſo farre / From malicing, or grudging his good houre, / That, all he could, he graced him with her, / Ne euer ſhewed ſigne of rancour or of iarre.
- 1596, Edm[und] Spenser, “An Hymne of Heavenly Love”, in Fovvre Hymnes, London: VVilliam Ponsonby, page 32:
- His paines, his pouertie, his ſharpe aſſayes, / Through which he paſt his miſerable dayes, / Offending none, and doing good to all, / Yet being maliſt both of great and ſmall.
- 1599, Jonson, Ben, Every Man out of His Humour, act 5, scene 2:
- I am so far from malicing their states, / That I begin to pity 'em.
- 1609, Daniel, Samuel, The History of the Civil Wars, book 5, verse 48:
- A feeble spirited king that governed, / Who ill could guide the sceptre he did use; / His enemies, that his worth maliced, / Who both the land and him did much abuse: / The peoples love; and his apparent right, May seem sufficient motives to incite.
- 1995, Fugazi (lyrics and music), “Fell, Destroyed”, in Red Medicine, performed by Guy Picciotto:
- Here's a list of side effects / Practice tested / Covering every maliced angle / For example: / You will sleep forever / You will never sleep again
- 2005 May 3, “'He was a mess,' woman says of accused”, in The Whitehorse Star:
- Robert Truswell may have been a belligerent and malicing man, a jury heard this morning during the trial of George Kieran Daunt.
- 2018 May 14, Small, Kimberley, quoting Marion Hall, “Dancehall was contentious, says Marion Hall”, in The Jamaica Star:
- I haven't maliced anybody, definitely not. I never used to have friends like that. I had a few who I thought were friends. Even if you have friends, things happen and friendship break up, but you move on. But I still talk to everybody.
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Synonyms
- envy (obsolete), grudge (obsolete), spite
Anagrams
- amelic, claime, maleic
Esperanto
Etymology
From malico + -e.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /maˈlit͡se/
- Hyphenation: ma‧lic‧e
- Rhymes: -it͡se
Adverb
malice
- maliciously
French
Etymology
From Old French malice, borrowed from Latin malitia.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ma.lis/
Noun
malice f (plural malices)
- mischief
- malice
Related terms
- mal
References
- Etymology and history of “malice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Further reading
- “malice”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Old French
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin malitia.
Noun
malice f (oblique plural malices, nominative singular malice, nominative plural malices)
- malice, evilness, evil intentions
- malicious act
Descendants
- → Middle English: malice
- English: malice
- French: malice
- → Irish: mailís
References
- malice on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub