malicious

adjective ma·li·cious \ mə-ˈli-shəs \

|Updated on: 8 Aug 2018

Examples: malicious in a Sentence

Editor's Note: malicious, malevolent, and malice

Definition of malicious

: having or showing a desire to cause harm to someone : given to, marked by, or arising from malice

malicious gossip

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maliciously

adverb

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maliciousness

noun

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See malicious defined for kids

Examples of malicious in a Sentence

… she is an inspired hater, and thrills to malicious descriptions of long-forgotten, nameless individuals whose bad luck it was to live near her, or to have met her socially. —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review, 5 Nov. 2000
A cunning and malicious crook who suckered him without half trying. —Philip Roth, American Pastoral, 1997
Frank sensed her discomfort and took a certain malicious pleasure in it, enacting all the while his perfect innocence. —John Updike, The Afterlife, 1994
a malicious distortion of the truth
the neighborhood chatterbox has again been spreading malicious gossip

Recent Examples of malicious from the Web

Whether Lift is a malicious mastermind or just a kooky founder whose ambitions led him to murky ethical decisions is hardly important.

— hannah giorgis, The Atlantic, "Sorry to Bother You Has an Eerily Familiar Villain," 10 July 2018
Oxley faces a misdemeanor charge of malicious destruction of property.

— bryce airgood, Detroit Free Press, "Cheboygan has the same happy bunnies as Royal Oak: Here's why.," 6 July 2018
This particular negative ad campaign against Householder is intentional, malicious and attempted to defraud the voting public, his lawsuit says.

— chrissie thompson, Cincinnati.com, "In ‘fraud,’ Ohio ads run in CPAC chair's name. Householder's suit says the ads are lies.," 19 Apr. 2018
Lee-Sung wrote that investigators found no evidence that Canzone made malicious or blatantly fabricated statements in the application submitted in fall 2015 for a California Gold Ribbon School Award, which the school received.

— daniel langhorne, latimes.com, "Investigation of Mariners Elementary award application backs some claims of inaccuracies but says some concerns were ‘embellished’," 12 Apr. 2018
The beating was worse, though, because of the principle it was acted out from, in terms of how Fred chose power and punishment over helping this baby, or understanding that Serena didn’t do anything just to be malicious or go behind his back.

— jennifer vineyard, New York Times, "‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: Yvonne Strahovski on the Harrowing Finale and Serena’s Murky Future," 11 July 2018
Both are charged with first- and second-degree assault, assault of a law enforcement officer, grand theft and malicious destruction of property, among other charges, police said.

— gal tziperman lotan, baltimoresun.com, "Two charged after officials say 16-year-old rammed Baltimore County police car with stolen SUV," 10 July 2018
Brennan McCarthy, the lawyer who represented his former classmate, said Ramos' harassment of her was malicious.

— author: matthew barakat, denise lavoie, Anchorage Daily News, "Newspaper shooting suspect's grievances began with classmate," 30 June 2018
Fiber cuts aren't necessarily malicious, and can happen as the result of incidents like severe weather or construction mistakes.

— lily hay newman, WIRED, "Friday's Massive Comcast Outage Shows How Fragile the Internet Is," 29 June 2018

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

malicious, malevolent, and malice

Malicious and malevolent are close in meaning, since both refer to ill will that desires to see someone else suffer. But while malevolent suggests deep and lasting dislike, malicious usually means petty and spiteful. Malicious gossipers are often simply envious of a neighbor's good fortune. Vandals may take malicious pleasure in destroying and defacing property but usually don't truly hate the owners. Malice is an important legal concept, which has to be proved in order to convict someone of certain crimes such as first-degree murder.