bad actor

noun

plural bad actors

: a person, group, country, etc. who purposely and usually repeatedly engages in very bad behavior (such as committing crimes or causing harm to others)

Giving users a way to prove that they're being harassed with, say, a screenshot or some other form of authentication could help Twitter catch bad actors, even after they've covered their tracks.

—Issie Lapowsky

A perennial diplomatic bad actor, North Korea has already rattled its sabers at the opening of the Obama administration.

—Alex Kingsbury

"We've got to break away from the notion," as the U.A.W.'s [United Auto Workers] director of public relations, Peter G. Laarman, puts it, "that labor is a 'bad actor' in the economy. …"

—Harry Stein

also : something that causes trouble, danger, or a problem

The bad actor in male pattern hair loss is DHT, a metabolic product of testosterone.

—Jane E. Brody

We have special ducts throughout the vapor bath that carry away all the toxic bad actors.

—PC Today

Examples of bad actor in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In higher-risk scenarios such as financial transfers or accessing sensitive information, KYA allows organizations to verify that a real human is actively approving an action, and preventing bad actors or rogue AI agents from causing harm. —Andrew Sever, Forbes.com, 28 May 2026

One powerful way to prevent bad actors from gaining access to your precious credit file is to freeze it. —Jill Schlesinger, Mercury News, 25 May 2026

Regehr says parents should also talk with their kids about algorithms and the potential for misuse by bad actors on social media, citing concerns over online safety. —Rachel Hale, USA Today, 23 May 2026

But when the government fails to hold providers accountable, bad actors find loopholes. —Al Sharpton, New York Daily News, 22 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1879, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bad actor

• attractor
• cofactor
• compactor
• contactor
• contractor
• distractor
• extractor
• impactor
• protractor
• reactor
• redactor
• refractor