slang
having or showing a desire to cause someone pain or suffering for the sheer enjoyment of it
with all of his tattoos and piercings, that skinhead looks like one really bad dude
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Recent Examples of bad
Adjective
The Dow on Wednesday had its worst day in almost a month after Washington and Tehran traded strikes.—
John Towfighi,
CNN Money,
9 July 2026 Anybody who cared to think critically could foresee all those kitchen table issues would become far worse under the administration of an insecure narcissist.—Chicago Tribune,
9 July 2026
Adverb
The dialogue sometimes lapses from bad-funny to just bad.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
21 Jan. 2026 Pull leftovers that still need to be eaten to the front, along with any foods that are going to go bad soon.—
Sophia Beams,
Better Homes & Gardens,
23 Nov. 2025
Noun
In times when the city's bad seems to overshadow the good, Daniels and others like him can be a guidepost for generations to come.—
Sophia Tiedge,
jsonline.com,
11 Sep. 2025 While working together on The Unit, David Mamet once told you that good drama isn’t a choice between good and bad; good drama is the choice between two bads.—
Max Gao,
The Hollywood Reporter,
24 Jan. 2025
Noun
On one side, a satanic figure named Randall Flagg who gathers his forces of badness to Las Vegas; on the other, the good guys, led by 108-year-old Mother Abigail in, of all places, Boulder.—
Barbara Ellis,
Denver Post,
15 Jan. 2026 The show premiered over Thanksgiving weekend, when people were tired and full and bored (and probably also horny), and countered our world’s unceasing badness with its world’s buoyant sweetness.—
Fran Hoepfner,
Vulture,
12 Jan. 2026 See All Example Sentences for bad
Democrats have called it an unacceptable gift from a foreign government that is barred by the Constitution, as what is called an emolument.
—
Bart Jansen,
USA Today,
8 July 2026
Should England go on to win their quarterfinal or entire tournament, their run will be tainted by this scandal, forever laden with an asterisk over this unacceptable atrocity.
Wicked Wonderland follows 2024’s The Rise of Red, where Cantrall’s character and Cinderella’s daughter Chloe (Malia Baker) team up to go back in time and reverse the event that resulted in the Queen of Hearts’ evil path.
—
Gabrielle Rockson,
PEOPLE,
15 July 2026
From the giant evil balloon, known as Rover, to the beautiful houses of Portmeirion itself, The Prisoner is an incredibly visually striking show.
The as-yet-untitled series will follow the story of multiple families and campaigners including Ellen Roome, who believes that the tragic death of her beloved 14-year-old son Julian ‘Jools’ Sweeney could have been linked to harmful social media.
—
Max Goldbart,
Deadline,
15 July 2026
And planting near any street could expose trees to harmful salt spray when roads are treated in the winter.
—
Viveka Neveln,
Better Homes & Gardens,
14 July 2026
In that case, an election official copies a voter's selections from a defective ballot onto a new ballot that can be scanned in the voting machine.
—
Angela George,
Sioux Falls Argus Leader,
8 July 2026
Avila's family sued Tesla last week, alleging her death resulted from the company's gross negligence and failure to warn consumers that its self-driving systems were defective.
Anyone concerned about coming down with this very unpleasant sickness should avoid lettuces for the time being, says Rabia de Latour, a gastroenterologist at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
—
Adam Kovac,
Scientific American,
15 July 2026
Like them, his music seesaws between aggressive and playful, between crowd-pleasing and purposefully unpleasant.
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