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

Bitcoin transactions also come with risks for bad actors. —Carlos Garcia, Fortune, 17 Feb. 2026

With political tensions high these days, people are taking to the streets more often to protest, meaning local law enforcement is often present to make sure those people can protest free from harm and protect the community from bad actors. —Michael Abeyta, CBS News, 13 Feb. 2026

Artificial intelligence has given bad actors an incredibly powerful tool to deceive voters. —State Rep. Matt Blumenthal, Hartford Courant, 12 Feb. 2026

This shift addresses growing concerns over identity fraud and the ease with which bad actors find sensitive data via search engines. —Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 10 Feb. 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