malicious
adjective
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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.
Examples of malicious in a Sentence
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
Elle Meyers, CBS News, 13 Apr. 2026
Concerns arose about what would happen to the infrastructure of the internet if hackers, or other people with malicious intent, use the model.
—Davis Giangiulio, CNBC, 13 Apr. 2026
In worst-case scenarios, malicious code can exploit weaknesses in your phone, create backdoor access and pull in even more data without your knowledge.
—Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 9 Apr. 2026
Over a four-week period starting on December 12, Black Lotus observed more than 290,000 distinct IP addresses sending at least one DNS request to the malicious APT28 DNS resolver.
—Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 8 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for malicious
Cite this Entry
“Malicious.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malicious. Accessed 15 Apr. 2026.
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malicious
adjective
Legal Definition
malicious
adjective
