bad guy

noun

|Updated on: 18 Jun 2018

Definition of bad guy

informal

1 : the villain in a story : baddie

played the bad guy in the movie

2 : 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

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

Recent Examples of bad guy from the Web

There’d be music and some acting and a bad guy, and a dance.

— allison stewart, chicagotribune.com, "Hey, hey, it's the Monkees, coming to this town," 7 June 2018
The 10 Star Wars films since 1977 have given us an abundance of lightsabers, cosmic derring-do, the Force, bounty hunters, good guys, bad guys and porgs, but no onscreen lovemaking.

— brian truitt, USA TODAY, "We've got a good feeling about this: It's time for 'Star Wars' to have a sex scene," 30 May 2018
Joe Kenda always gets the bad guy and, for the 450 attendees of IDCON on that gray, drizzly Saturday, that kind of certainty seemed to be a comfort in uncertain times.

— refinery29.com, "Murder, Mystery, & Crime Daddies: A Day At IDCon," 23 May 2018
The bad guy becomes the good guy and gets the girl in the end.

— robert philpot, star-telegram, "WFAA's Greg Fields talks faith, getting a master's degree and overcoming childhood fears | Fort Worth Star-Telegram," 17 May 2018
There are good guys and bad guys and in-between guys, and Chewbacca gets to do his Chewbacca thing.

— todd vanderwerff, Vox, "5 things to know about Solo: A Star Wars Story," 15 May 2018
The same thing that has always happened with a quarterback who's too skilled to be a true underdog, too short to be a sure thing, too emotional to be completely trusted, too charismatic to be a bad guy and and too confident to be denied.

— doug lesmerises, cleveland.com, "Baker Mayfield, sneaking up on the football world again: NFL Draft 2018," 26 Apr. 2018
How come some inexplicable logic drives the good guys or bad guys into the lead position in this final battle every few minutes?

— sam machkovech, Ars Technica, "Ready Player One’s film adaptation isn’t even good enough as a kids movie," 29 Mar. 2018
This tends to happen only with really good guys or really bad guys.

— gogo lidz, Newsweek, "The Resurrection Will Not Be Televised: 15 Ways to Bring TV Characters Back From the Dead," 29 Apr. 2015

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bad guy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.