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

Tech support bad actors, for example, often begin with a sudden call claiming that a virus has infected their computer. —Jason Phillips, USA Today, 5 Sep. 2025

Without encryption, your internet traffic would be an open book for anyone to read, including bad actors. —Anand Oswal, Forbes.com, 2 Sep. 2025

While older tactics like phishing emails and impersonating government agencies to steal credentials are becoming easier to spot, bad actors are now turning to more alarming methods. —Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 1 Sep. 2025

In short, everything a bad actor needs to get away with identity theft on a large scale. —Alan Henry, PC Magazine, 29 Aug. 2025

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