bad
/bad
/adjective (worse /wəːs/, worst /wəːst/)
1Of poor quality or a low standard: a bad diet bad eyesight...
- More big fish are lost through bad knots or poor quality crimping than for any other reason.
- There were a lot of bad websites at one point where the loading was bad, quality of images were poor and the interface was clumsy.
- The poor living conditions, bad diet, lack of exercise and now being alone have all taken their toll.
Synonyms
substandard, poor, inferior, second-rate, second-class, unsatisfactory, inadequate, unacceptable, not up to scratch, not up to par, deficient, imperfect, defective, faulty, shoddy, amateurish, careless, negligent;
dreadful, awful, terrible, abominable, frightful, atrocious, disgraceful, deplorable, hopeless, worthless, laughable, lamentable, miserable, sorry, third-rate, diabolical, execrable;
incompetent, inept, inexpert, ineffectual
informal crummy, rotten, pathetic, useless, woeful, bum, lousy, ropy, appalling, abysmal, pitiful, God-awful, dire, poxy, not up to snuff, the pits
British informal duff, chronic, rubbish, pants, a load of pants
vulgar slang crap, shit, chickenshit
rare egregious
1.1Not able to do a particular thing well: I’m so bad at names a bad listener...
- Yes, I do think that sometimes philosophers are very bad at it, because they don't think about it.
- Now, having said all that, it still has to be said that Dawn is pretty bad at fantasy football.
- I'm not sure why humans are so bad at planning for the future, especially for those things we can predict.
1.2 [attributive] Not appropriate in a particular situation: morning was a bad time to ask Andy about anything...
- Consumers mistakenly believe it's a bad time to get good mortgage.
- Is now a bad time to ask how much you are spending on prenatal and pregnancy-related health care?
- There's a good time and a bad time to ask your boss for more money.
Synonyms
inauspicious, disadvantageous, adverse, difficult, inopportune, unpropitious, inappropriate, unsuitable, unfavourable, unfortunate, untoward
informal disastrous
2Not such as to be hoped for or desired; unpleasant or unwelcome: bad news it was the worst day of his life bad luck...
- I went out to the deck, hoping even with the bad weather that I could train a bit.
- Even the TV had the grace to allow a bad weather news day to take precedence.
- In the days before the wireless, he was trained to bear news of imminent bad weather from island to island.
Synonyms
unpleasant, disagreeable, unwelcome, unfortunate, unfavourable, unlucky, adverse, nasty;
terrible, dreadful, awful, grim, distressing, regrettable
archaic or humorous parlous
2.1(Of something causing pain, danger, or other unwelcome consequences) severe or serious: bad headaches a bad crash...
- The water was a bit soapy and although she never got pregnant, she had some really bad aches and pains for weeks after that.
- At 12.47 a call is received from a patient recently discharged from hospital after a hip operation and now in very bad pain.
- He visited his doctor who sent him home and when he phoned later that afternoon his chest pains were still bad so an ambulance was called.
Synonyms
severe, serious, grave, critical, grievous, acute, dreadful, terrible, awful, ghastly, dire, grim, frightful, shocking;
life-threatening;
Medicine peracute
2.2Unfavourable; adverse: bad reviews...
- A musician once said to me if you don't get any bad reviews you're not doing your job.
- The worst thing is when your mother calls you on the phone to read you your bad reviews out loud.
- There are some really bad reviews of it, but I would kind of like to take a look at it nonetheless.
2.3 (bad for) Having a harmful effect on: soap was bad for his face...
- Whether it is good for you or not, I would contend that all food can be good for you or it can be bad for you.
- Some flower beds and tubs have been planted up but the weather has been to bad for painting.
- If I did not know better, I would have to say that running is bad for you, with both of us seriously ill.
Synonyms
harmful, damaging, detrimental, undesirable, injurious, hurtful, inimical, dangerous, destructive, ruinous, deleterious;
unhealthy, unwholesome
3Lacking or failing to conform to moral virtue: the bad guys bad behaviour...
- Teachers also noticed a reduction in criminal and bad behaviour.
- What happens when one's bad behaviour is considered as usual and is no longer condemned or even commented on?
- The general level of ignorance on what is good or bad behaviour is compounded by the idealisation of childhood.
Synonyms
wicked, sinful, immoral, evil, morally wrong, corrupt, base, black-hearted, reprobate, depraved, degenerate, dissolute, amoral;
criminal, villainous, nefarious, iniquitous, dishonest, dishonourable, unscrupulous, unprincipled
informal crooked, bent, dirty
archaic dastardly
3.1(Of language) using words generally considered offensive.She has even invented a mechanical parrot that speaks bad French....
- They were swearing at me as I laid on the floor, with very bad words.
- Speak very bad words to him in the 90 minutes and, after that, say you're sorry.
Synonyms
offensive, vulgar, crude, foul, obscene, rude, coarse, smutty, dirty, filthy, indecent, indecorous;
blasphemous, profane
4(Of a part of the body) injured, diseased, or painful: a bad back...
- After all, our national inheritance also includes heart disease, damp and bad teeth.
- Her son joined another queue to have his bad back checked and would be there for hours, so we took her to our hotel to rest.
- I was taking Baja out for a bathroom run when he yanked me and I slipped on an ice patch, twisting my bad knee.
Synonyms
injured, wounded, diseased
British informal gammy, knackered
Australian/New Zealand informal crook
dated game
4.1 [as complement] (Of a person) unwell: I feel bad...
- Pain is your body's way of telling you to stop, and ignoring it will not only make you feel bad but probably injure you into the bargain.
- Even if you don't feel that bad, meningitis is a quick moving disease so it's better to be safe than sorry.
- Would allergic kids let us know if they felt bad or accidentally contacted something?
5(Of food) decayed; putrid: everything in the fridge went bad...
- You can't get much sleep; and the kids are throwing up because the food is bad.
- The stray dogs may be hungrier, but I don't think they ever ate that bad rice.
- Many feared that if the food went bad and somebody became ill that they would be liable and could be sued.
Synonyms
rotten, off, decayed, decomposed, decomposing, putrid, putrefied, putrescent, mouldy, mouldering;
sour, rancid, rank, unfit for human consumption;
addled;
maggoty, worm-eaten, wormy, flyblown
rare putrefactive, putrefacient
5.1(Of the atmosphere) polluted; unhealthy: bad air...
- If economic growth continues, there are bound to be more cars spewing bad air.
- Does the arachnid feel a difference in the air between a bad ozone day and a good one?
- There must be a magic line down the middle of the street that divides the good air from the bad air.
6 [as complement] Regretful, guilty, or ashamed about something: working mothers who feel bad about leaving their child...
- I felt so bad, so ashamed of the person I am today, so worthless, so empty, so useless.
- I feel slightly bad, but hope you guessed correctly which option I would go for.
- She had been a bitch to Michelle and she felt bad about it after Hope had put it in the light.
Synonyms
guilty, conscience-stricken, remorseful, guilt-ridden, ashamed, chastened, contrite, sorry, full of regret, regretful, repentant, penitent, shamefaced, self-reproachful, apologetic
7Worthless; not valid: he ran up 87 bad cheques...
- He relies on the telephone and on an eye trained by expensive experience to ferret out bad checks.
- The geeks will not inherit the earth: They spend too much time watching movies and checking for bad physics.
- One of my earlier cases was investigating a bad cheque that had been passed at a local merchant.
Synonyms
invalid, worthless;
counterfeit, fake, false, spurious, fraudulent
informal bogus, phoney, dud
8 (badder, baddest) informal, chiefly North American Good; excellent: they want the baddest, best-looking Corvette there is...
- He was amusing, and he made me feel as if I was the baddest one in the place.
- ‘It was the baddest car I'd ever seen and I promised myself right then that one day I'd have one just like it.’
- She knew she was badder than these wannabe hoodlums.
adverb North American informal
Badly: he beat her up real bad...
- I tell you, if we start to win again, I want to beat them real bad this time.
- No matter how bad I threw the ball, it was still going to knock down at least one pin.
- It would be disrespectful of me to talk bad of her on a forum that everybody can read.
Phrases
a bad penny always turns up
a bad workman always blames his tools
come to a bad end
from bad to worse
in a bad way
my bad
be no bad thing
not (or not so) bad
to the bad
too bad
Derivatives
baddish
/ adjective ...- But I think you should tell her before something baddish happens.
- Then, when I'm having a baddish moment they come up and be nice to me, then I spit something back in their face that I'd rather not and the cycle of being ignored begins again.
- The woman, with the baddish cat following closely at her heels, entered the Bilkins mansion, reached her chamber in the attic without being intercepted, and there laid aside her finery.
Origin
Middle English: perhaps from Old English bǣddel 'hermaphrodite, womanish man'.
Homophobia may lie at the root of the meaning of bad. The word appeared in the 13th century, and at that time had two syllables, like baddy. This suggests that it may be a shortening of Old English bæddel ‘effeminate man, hermaphrodite’. Bad was specifically applied to coins with a reduced content of precious metal. This gives us the bad penny, which ‘always turns up’. Debased coinage also features in the proverb bad money drives out good, also known as Gresham's law, after Queen Elizabeth I's chief financial adviser Sir Thomas Gresham (1519–79). He observed that people tended to hang on to coins of a high intrinsic value, like gold sovereigns, while being happier to spend those of a lower intrinsic worth but equal face value. At the end of the 19th century bad underwent a complete reversal of meaning in US black slang, and in the 1920s jazz enthusiasts began to use it as a term of approval—something ‘bad’ was now ‘good’. Compare with the development of funk, wicked
Rhymes
- Blackwell, Elizabeth
- black whale
- black widow
- black widow spider
- black willow
- black-winged
- black-winged kite
- black-winged stilt
- black witch
- blackwood
- black woodpecker
- black Worcester
- blackwork
- blackwort
- blacky
- black–white
- blad
- bladder
- bladder campion
- bladdered
- bladder fern
- bladdernut
- bladder senna
- bladder worm
- bladderwort