Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A desire to harm others or to see others suffer; extreme ill will or spite.
  • noun The intent to commit an unlawful act without justification or excuse.
  • noun An improper motive for an action, such as desire to cause injury to another.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Badness; bad quality.
  • noun Evil; harm; a malicious act; also, evil influence.
  • noun A propensity to inflict injury or suffering, or to take pleasure in the misfortunes of another or others; active ill-will, whether from natural disposition or special impulse; enmity; hatred: sometimes used in a lighter sense. See malicious, 1.
  • noun In law, a design or intention of doing mischief to another; the evil intention (either actual or implied) with which one deliberately, and without justification or excuse, does a wrongful act which is injurious to others.
  • noun Synonyms Ill-will, Enmity, etc. (see animosity); maliciousness, venom, spitefulness, depravity.
  • To regard with malice; bear extreme ill-will to; also, to envy and hate.
  • noun The common dwarf mallow, Malta rotundifolia.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb obsolete To regard with extreme ill will.
  • noun Enmity of heart; malevolence; ill will; a spirit delighting in harm or misfortune to another; a disposition to injure another; a malignant design of evil.
  • noun (Law) Any wicked or mischievous intention of the mind; a depraved inclination to mischief; an intention to vex, annoy, or injure another person, or to do a wrongful act without just cause or cause or excuse; a wanton disregard of the rights or safety of others; willfulness.
  • noun malice previously and deliberately entertained.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or immoral way. Desire to take pleasure in another's misfortune.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun feeling a need to see others suffer
  • noun the quality of threatening evil

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin malitia, from malus, bad; see mel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin malitia ("badness, bad quality, ill-will, spite"), from malus ("bad").

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Examples

  • II. i.146 (403,3) put on the vouch of very malice itself] _To put on the vouch of malice_, is to assume a character vouched by the testimony of malice itself.

    Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies Samuel Johnson 1746

  • In law the term malice and its adverbial form maliciously have two meanings: "legal malice" (also known as "malice in law"), and

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows FIRSTAMENDMENT 2010

  • If your client is who I think he is, then the jury needs to know it because he would have been fleeing and he would have tried to kill the sheriff and he would have tried it with what you call malice in mind.

    Come the Spring Julie Garwood 1997

  • If your client is who I think he is, then the jury needs to know it because he would have been fleeing and he would have tried to kill the sheriff and he would have tried it with what you call malice in mind.

    Come the Spring Julie Garwood 1997

  • First by reason of the very inclination of a vicious habit which we call malice, and, in this way, to sin through malice is not the same as to sin against the Holy

    Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Aquinas Thomas

  • 'I really don't think it was altogether what you call malice, so much as the Lester idea of fun,' said Ellen, recovering herself after her outpouring.

    Chantry House Charlotte Mary Yonge 1862

  • Actual malice is also relevant to the quantum of damages.

    Archive 2009-10-01 2009

  • Legal malice is implied from the mere publication of a defamatory communication.

    Archive 2009-10-01 2009

  • In all cases, except where actual malice is shown nevertheless, the impugned statement is not actionable if it is the truth or is fair comment or is protected by privilege.

    Archive 2009-10-01 2009

  • How anyone can view this as anything other than unconscionable malice is beyond me, but regardless of my opinion on the matter, god could just as easily have decreed that women are intellectual equals to men, and that they should be afforded the same rights as men in Israelite society.

    Harlan Ellison on God 2009

Comments

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  • For my part, I own, madam, wit loses its respect with me, when I see it in company with malice.

    Sheridan, School for Scandal

    January 6, 2008

  • Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

    Hanlon's razor

    July 5, 2009