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

Official browser stores like the Chrome Web Store have rules and scans to catch bad actors. —Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy Report, FOXNews.com, 24 Apr. 2025

But critics in the marijuana industry say the state’s efforts are still insufficient and, further, enable bad actors in the marketplace. —Tiney Ricciardi, Denver Post, 20 Apr. 2025

How Organizations Can Mitigate Autonomous AI Risks Despite these risks, agentic AI is coming and will be adopted and used, sometimes by bad actors. —Stu Sjouwerman, Forbes.com, 17 Apr. 2025

If genetic data falls into the hands of bad actors, it could be used to facilitate identity theft, insurance fraud and other crimes. —Ashley Capoot, CNBC, 17 Apr. 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