VILLAINY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does villainy mean? 

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

1. the quality of evil by virtue of villainous behavior

2. a criminal or vicious act

  Familiarity information: VILLAINY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VILLAINY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of evil by virtue of villainous behavior

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

villainousness; villainy

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

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

Sense 2

Meaning:

A criminal or vicious act

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

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

evildoing; transgression (the act of transgressing; the violation of a law or a duty or moral principle)

 Context examples 

This looked like some new scheme of villainy....

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“I have not yet told you the height of his villainy,” said she.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But surely they have nothing to win by such villainy, sir?

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“There has been some villainy here,” said Holmes; “this beauty has guessed Miss Hunter’s intentions and has carried his victim off.”

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Villainy is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mass is—HEEP!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Though aware, before she began it, that it must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and delicate feeling—so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever—a letter of which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be deep in hardened villainy.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I never thought of such villainy!

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The mere fact that solid men should patronize it was enough in itself to prevent the villainy which afterwards crept in.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I know it, for now and then I hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruthless villainy.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)