maleficencen.

1533 tr. Erasmus Enchiridion Militis Christiani xxviii. sig. Qiij We must haue in mynde the benefycens of god & the malyfycens or noysaunce of the deuyll.

1598 I. K. tr. A. Romei Courtier's Acad. 252 Povertie bringeth foorth seditions and maleficences.

a1670 J. Hacket Scrinia Reserata (1693) ii. 85 The Bishop of Lincoln..fell into trouble..for want of a parliament to keep him from maleficence.

1830 J. Bentham Official Aptitude Maximized Pref. p. xxv (note) The correspondent closeness of connection between maleficence..and punishment.

1865 J. Grote Treat. Moral Ideals (1876) xi. 244 By ‘maleficence’ I mean the attempt to give pain, as such, to others.

1969 A. Stewart in G. Ionescu & E. Gellner Populism 192 In other cases, there is a stress upon calculated maleficence and xenophobia, containing fascist elements.

1988 Times Lit. Suppl. 8 July 751/3 The misfortunes that afflict them..are attributed to the evil eye or more deliberate forms of maleficence.

1796 H. Hunter tr. J.-H. B. de Saint-Pierre Stud. Nature (1799) II. 32 In order to express the maleficent character of a venomous plant, she combines in it clashing oppositions of the forms and colours which are the indications of that maleficence.

1830 Westm. Rev. 13 428 He takes in hand Matchless Constitution's plan. Not sufficient for him is its maleficence—he adds to it [etc.].

1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. II. 884 There is still in such [formerly malarious] districts some remnant of maleficence.

1931 J. Buchan Blanket of Dark 289 He had seen his enemy and had understood both his power and his maleficence.

1979 Dædalus Summer 91 This is..to submit again to the maleficence of exteriority by putting one's self hors de soi.