MALICE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does malice mean? 

• MALICE (noun)
  The noun MALICE has 2 senses:

1. feeling a need to see others suffer

2. the quality of threatening evil

  Familiarity information: MALICE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MALICE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Feeling a need to see others suffer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Synonyms:

malice; maliciousness; spite; spitefulness; venom

Hypernyms ("malice" is a kind of...):

malevolence; malignity (wishing evil to others)

Derivation:

malicious (having the nature of or resulting from malice)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of threatening evil

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

malevolence; malevolency; malice

Hypernyms ("malice" is a kind of...):

evil; evilness (the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "malice"):

bitchiness; cattiness; nastiness; spite; spitefulness (malevolence by virtue of being malicious or spiteful or nasty)

cruelness; cruelty; harshness (the quality of being cruel and causing tension or annoyance)

beastliness; meanness (the quality of being deliberately mean)

 Context examples 

In that hour I should die and at once satisfy and extinguish his malice.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The mild Mr. Chillip could not possibly bear malice at such a time, if at any time.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“No malice, my young clerk, no malice,” quoth Black Simon.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The context convinces me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter by.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion—her malice—At all events it must be appeased.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with malice, and said mockingly: “I have them, they shall not escape me again!”

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

We were agog with excitement, all except Wolf Larsen, who was too evidently disappointed in that it was not his own boat with the two victims of his malice.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy.”

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The very atmosphere he breathed was surcharged with hatred and malice, and this but served to increase the hatred and malice within him.

(White Fang, by Jack London)