having a wicked or evil character; morally reprehensible: There is no such thing as a bad boy.
of poor or inferior quality; defective; deficient: a bad diamond; a bad spark plug.
inadequate or below standard; not satisfactory for use: bad heating; Living conditions in some areas are very bad.
inaccurate, incorrect, or faulty: a bad guess.
invalid, unsound, or false: a bad insurance claim; bad judgment.
causing or liable to cause sickness or ill health; injurious or harmful: Too much sugar is bad for your teeth.
suffering from sickness, ill health, pain, or injury; sick; ill: He felt bad from eating the green apples.
not healthy or in good physical condition; diseased, decayed, or physically weakened: A bad heart kept him out of the army.
tainted, spoiled, or rotten, especially to the point of being inedible: The meat is bad because you left it out of the refrigerator too long.
having a disastrous or detrimental effect, result, or tendency; unfavorable: The drought is bad for the farmers. His sloppy appearance made a bad impression.
causing or characterized by discomfort, inconvenience, uneasiness, or annoyance; disagreeable; unpleasant: I had a bad flight to Chicago.
easily provoked to anger; irascible: a bad temper.
cross, irritable, or surly: If I don't have my morning coffee, I'm in a bad mood all day.
more uncomfortable, persistent, painful, or dangerous than usual; severe: a bad attack of asthma.
causing or resulting in disaster or severe damage or destruction: a bad flood.
regretful, contrite, dejected, or upset: He felt bad about having to leave the children all alone.
disobedient, naughty, or misbehaving: If you're bad at school, you'll go to bed without supper.
disreputable or dishonorable: He's getting a bad name from changing jobs so often.
displaying a lack of skill, talent, proficiency, or judgment: a bad painting; Bad drivers cause most of the accidents.
causing distress; unfortunate or unfavorable: I'm afraid I have bad news for you.
not suitable or appropriate; disadvantageous or dangerous: It was a bad day for fishing.
inclement; considered too stormy, hot, cold, etc.: We had a bad winter with a lot of snow.
disagreeable or offensive to the senses: a bad odor.
exhibiting a lack of artistic sensitivity: The room was decorated in bad taste.
not in keeping with a standard of behavior or conduct; coarse: bad manners.
(of a word, speech, or writing)
vulgar, obscene, or blasphemous: bad language.
not properly observing rules or customs of grammar, usage, spelling, etc.; incorrect: He speaks bad English.
unattractive, especially because of a lack of pleasing proportions: She has a bad figure.
(of the complexion) marred by defects; pockmarked or pimply; blemished: bad skin.
not profitable or worth the price paid: The land was a bad buy.
Commerce. deemed uncollectible or irrecoverable and treated as a loss: a bad debt.
ill-spent; wasted: Don't throw good money after bad money.
counterfeit; not genuine: There was a bad ten-dollar bill in with the change.
having the character of a villain; villainous: In the movies the good guys always beat the bad guys.
Sports. failing to land within the in-bounds limits of a court or section of a court; missing the mark; not well aimed.
Slang. outstandingly excellent; first-rate: He's a bad man on drums, and the fans love him.
noun
that which is bad: You have to take the bad with the good.
a bad condition, character, or quality: His health seemed to go from bad to worse.
(used with a plural verb)Usually the bad . evil persons collectively: The bad are always stirring up trouble.
adverbInformal.
badly: He wanted it bad enough to steal it.
Idioms for bad
bad off, in poor or distressed condition or circumstances; destitute: His family has been pretty bad off since he lost his job.Also badly off. Compare well-off.
go to the bad, to deteriorate physically or morally; go to ruin: She wept at seeing her son go to the bad.
in a bad way, in severe trouble or distress.
in bad, Informal.
in trouble or distress.
in disfavor: He's in bad with his father-in-law.
my bad, Slang. my fault! my mistake!
not bad,
tolerably good; not without merit: The dinner wasn't bad, but I've had better.
not difficult: Once you know geometry, trigonometry isn't bad.
Also not so bad,not too bad.
too bad, unfortunate or disappointing: It's too bad that he didn't go to college.
to the bad, in arrears: He's $100 to the bad on his debt.
Origin of bad
1
First recorded in 1200–1250; Middle English badde, bad; origin uncertain; perhaps akin to Old English bæddel “hermaphrodite,” bædling “womanish man”
2. Bad,evil,ill,wicked are closest in meaning in reference to that which is lacking in moral qualities or is actually vicious and reprehensible. Bad is the broadest and simplest term: a bad man; bad habits.Evil applies to that which violates or leads to the violation of moral law: evil practices.Ill now appears mainly in certain fixed expressions, with a milder implication than that in evil: ill will; ill-natured.Wicked implies willful and determined doing of what is very wrong: a wicked plan.
usage note for bad
The adjective bad meaning “unpleasant, unattractive, unfavorable, spoiled, etc.,” is the usual form to follow such copulative verbs as sound, smell, look, and taste: After the rainstorm the water tasted bad. The coach says the locker room smells bad. After the copulative verb feel, the adjective badly in reference to physical or emotional states is also used and is standard, although bad is more common in formal writing: I feel bad from overeating. She felt badly about her friend's misfortune. When the adverbial use is required, badly is standard with all verbs: She reacted badly to the criticism.Bad as an adverb appears mainly in informal contexts: I didn't do too bad on the tests. He wants money so bad it hurts. See also badly, good.
historical usage of bad
The etymology of bad is obscure, and the word has no relatives in other languages. The Middle English form badde is not clearly attested before 1300. Badde may derive from Old English bæddel, bǽddel “hermaphrodite” and bædling “womanish man.” Bad off, in standard English now badly off, dates to the first half of the 18th century ( badly off dates to roughly the same time). The colloquialism my bad!, an Americanism, dates from the early 1980s. Bad in its slang sense “excellent, first-rate” is surprisingly old, first appearing in print in the 1890s. It was then popularized in the 1920s within the jazz scene, and is typically associated with Black English. The slang sense “very tough, formidable” also appeared in the 19th century; it often meant “formidably skilled,” which ties in with the “excellent, first-rate” meaning.
Finally, even in the worst-case scenario, in which a child does contract Covid-19, the outcomes of the disease are less severe in younger people than among older adults.
I’m an epidemiologist and a dad. Here’s why I think schools should reopen.|Benjamin P. Linas|July 9, 2020|Vox
To be sure, people basically gambling with money they would be devastated to lose is bad.
Who gets to be reckless on Wall Street?|Emily Stewart|July 9, 2020|Vox
In doing so, the app aims to bring more transparency to how social networks moderate hate speech by showing those who report it what is and isn’t deemed bad enough to be removed.
Pernod Ricard thinks the Facebook advertiser revolt won’t be enough to curb hate speech online, so it’s developing an app to help|Seb Joseph|July 9, 2020|Digiday
What investors do appear to have is conviction that earnings for the second quarter likely won’t be as bad as expected.
5 theories on why the stock market is up 42% since March—ranked by likelihood|Anne Sraders|July 8, 2020|Fortune
Sometimes, much as we hate to admit it, a bad race is simply a bad race.
The Athlete's Guide to Boosting Iron|Alex Hutchinson|July 8, 2020|Outside Online
We need to recover and grow the idea that the proper answer to bad speech is more and better speech.
How the PC Police Threaten Free Speech|Nick Gillespie|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
They all immediately dashed out to their car to catch the bad guys.
Shot Down During the NYPD Slowdown|Michael Daly|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Ass-kicking, bad guy-killing Carter is just a future spinster.
Marvel’s ‘Agent Carter’ Stomps on the Patriarchy|Melissa Leon|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Terrorism is bad news anywhere, but especially rough on Odessa, where the city motto seems to be “make love, not war.”
Is Putin Turning to Terrorism in Ukraine?|Anna Nemtsova|January 6, 2015|DAILY BEAST
We, on the other hand, are the ones who are making it bad, and the ones with the power to change that.
Cover-Ups and Concern Trolls: Actually, It's About Ethics in Suicide Journalism|Arthur Chu|January 3, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Some numbers have a bad influence for him, and there are good numbers.
Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, January 1900|Various
Altogether, it was a nice scrambling, homelike expedition, if I had not come back with such a bad headache.
Up the Country|Emily Eden
How are we to know what is right and wrong, and what are our motives for approving and disapproving the good and the bad?
The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I.|Sir Leslie Stephen
It looks to me as though Pretty Sweet was in a bad hole, and no mistake.
The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross|Gertrude W. Morrison
Shure, they were bad enough to say he was puttin' the money in his own pocket, and dem goin' to their juty every month.
My New Curate|P.A. Sheehan
British Dictionary definitions for bad (1 of 2)
bad1
/ (bæd) /
adjectiveworseorworst
not good; of poor quality; inadequate; inferiorbad workmanship; bad soil; bad light for reading
(often foll by at)lacking skill or talent; incompetenta bad painter; bad at sports
(often foll by for)harmfulbad air; smoking is bad for you
immoral; evila bad life
naughty; mischievous; disobedienta bad child
rotten; decayed; spoileda bad egg
severe; intensea bad headache
incorrect; wrong; faultybad pronunciation
ill or in pain (esp in the phrase feel bad)
regretful, sorry, or upset (esp in the phrase feel bad about)
unfavourable; distressingbad news; a bad business
offensive; unpleasant; disagreeablebad language; bad temper
not valid or sound; voida bad cheque
not recoverablea bad debt
badderorbaddestslanggood; excellent
go from bad to worseto deteriorate even more
go badto putrefy; spoil
in a bad wayinformal
seriously ill, through sickness or injury
in trouble of any kind
in someone's bad books See book (def. 21)
make the best of a bad jobto manage as well as possible in unfavourable circumstances
not badornot so badinformalpassable; fair; fairly good
not half badinformalvery good
too badinformal(often used dismissively) regrettable
noun
unfortunate or unpleasant events collectively (often in the phrase take the bad with the good)
an immoral or degenerate state (often in the phrase go to the bad)
the debit side of an account£200 to the bad
my badUS and Canadianinformalmy fault or mistake
adverb
not standardbadlyto want something bad
Derived forms of bad
baddish, adjectivebadness, noun
Word Origin for bad
C13: probably from bæd-, as the first element of Old English bǣddel hermaphrodite, bǣdling sodomite
10 Words To Use Instead Of “Interesting”If we've said it once, we've said it a thousand times (and we have): "interesting" isn't always a very interesting word choice. Try one of these options instead.