malicious

adjective ma·li·cious \ mə-ˈli-shəs \

Updated on: 19 Apr 2018

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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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

In the past fifty years, our talking machines have continued to evolve, but none of them have become as authentically malicious as HAL.

— junot díaz, The New Yorker, "“2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made," 17 Apr. 2018
When captured in a moment of wrongdoing, a culprit will simply declare the visual evidence a malicious concoction.

— franklin foer, The Atlantic, "The End of Reality," 8 Apr. 2018
On Thursday, 30-year-old Mathew Thomas Benner plead guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree arson and malicious damage to occupied property with an incendiary device.

— jane wester, charlotteobserver, "Man pleads guilty to murder, arson after killing woman in apartment fire | Charlotte Observer," 5 Apr. 2018
The acknowledgment was part of a broader disclosure by Facebook on Wednesday about the ways in which various levels of user data have been taken by everyone from malicious actors to ordinary app developers.

— the washington post, OregonLive.com, "Personal data of nearly 2 billion users collected and shared with outsiders, Facebook says," 4 Apr. 2018
According to Google, the probability of a user downloading a malicious app from the Play Store was sliced in half last year, from .04 percent to .02 percent.

— michael simon, PCWorld, "The state of Android security: Great on Oreo, but most phones are missing out," 15 Mar. 2018
China is the dominant malicious actor in the information domain.

— larry greenemeier, Scientific American, "Trump Administration Idea for Nationalized 5G Falls Flat," 30 Jan. 2018
China is the dominant malicious actor in the Information Domain.

— eric limer, Popular Mechanics, "Why Would the White House Want to Build a Nationalized 5G Wireless Network?," 29 Jan. 2018
Daniel Madden, 32, of Avon, was charged with breaking and entering and malicious destruction of property.

— maddie kilgannon and alana levene, BostonGlobe.com, "Avon man arrested after breaking into Holbrook home," 2 Apr. 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.