bad guy

noun

1

informal : the villain in a story : baddie

played the bad guy in the movie

2

informal : someone who is likened to the villain in a story: such as

a

: a criminal

Designed to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys and children …

—Popular Science

b

: a military enemy

… a decision that owes more to parochial conflicts within the Armed Forces than to doing the best job of surveilling bad guys.

—Stuart F. Brown

c

: someone who deserves to be blamed or criticized for causing a bad situation

Meanwhile, it's the environmentalists who are now portrayed as the bad guys, hiring lots of lawyers, consorting with congressmen …

—Eric Alterman

d

: a person who treats other people harshly or strictly : a person who says or does unpopular things

As a coach sometimes you have to be the bad guy.

—Ed Jovanovski, quoted in Sports Illustrated

Parenting isn't just about having beautiful kids and being busy. It's about dealing with problems, and your success as a parent depends on your willingness to be the bad guy. If you aren't willing to be the bad guy, you shouldn't be a parent.

—Roy Bragg

Examples of bad guy in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

This is why many classic yakuza movies are set in the late nineteenth century, when the contrast between bad guys in business suits and good guys in kimonos offered rich dramatic possibilities. — Ian Buruma, New Yorker, 12 Oct. 2026

The unlikely pair build an operation that threatens to blow the local bad guys out of the water, as opposing futures beckon. — Max Goldbart, Deadline, 11 Oct. 2026

Eventually, Bird’s film — with a script co-written by Matthew Robbins — gets to the meat of the action when Venus’ extremely complicated life runs smack into Ray and his knack for sniffing out bad guys. — Kate Erbland, IndieWire, 10 Oct. 2026

But for the people who love procedurals, there’s always some new baddie; some new bad guy to chase down. — Jackie Strause, HollywoodReporter, 5 Oct. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1914, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for bad guy

• apply
• awry
• belie
• bely
• bigeye
• bonsai
• buckeye
• comply
• coxae
• decry
• defy
• deny