nefarious

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I don ` t know why you think -- take joy in something nefarious, as you say, happening.

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Definitions (5)

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  1. adjective Infamous by way of being extremely wicked.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

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Examples

  • I don ` t know why you think -- take joy in something nefarious, as you say, happening. —  CNN Transcript May 18, 2007
  • And I think everybody that knows Rah knows he would not do anything nefarious, anything illegal. —  CNN Transcript Dec 12, 2008
  • Mayor Rudy Giuliani held a press conference exposing what he characterized as a nefarious cult - hoopla that ended with a whimper as the Village Voice, The New York Times, Newsday, and other papers reported that NatlFed seemed to have never actually done anything. —  FACTnet
  • The defense is arguing something far more nefarious -- that the state is refusing to test -- to test the sperm because they think it will be exculpatory. —  CNN Transcript Oct 15, 2003
  • MCINTYRE: Gates had already withstood a flurry of broadsides from committee chairman and ardent war critic Robert Byrd, who railed against the cost of what he called the nefarious infernal war in Iraq. —  CNN Transcript Sep 26, 2007
 

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Nefarious has been looked up 812 times, favorited 11 times, listed 166 times, and commented on twice.

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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin nefārius, from nefās, crime, transgression : ne-, not; see ne in Indo-European roots + fās, divine law; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Spanish Portuguese Italian nefario, from Latin nefarius, impious, abominable, from nefas, something not according to divine law, impious, execrable, abominable, or wicked, a wicked deed, from ne, not, +. fas, lawful: see fasti. Cf. nefast.
 

Pronunciations
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/nəˈfeɪrɪəs/
by American Heritage

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