evil

Etymology 1

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel, Gothic 𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌻𐍃 (ubils, “bad, evil”)), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂up(h₁)élos, a deverbal derivative of *h₂wep(h₁)-, *h₂wop(h₁)- (“treat badly”). Compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *uɸelos, and Hittite 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒍣 (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), 𒄷𒉿𒀊𒉺𒀸 (huwappa-, “evil, badness”). See -le for the supposed suffix. Alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h₃ewp- (“down, up, over”).

adj

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.
   an evil plot to brainwash and even kill innocent people
   He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians. 1916, Zane Grey, chapter 10, in The Border Legion, New York: Harper & Bros., page 147
   2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351, “Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.” “You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”
   He tells secret dreams to strangers , imagines he can achieve art without discipline , regards all boundaries as evil , ignores ancestors , wants comfort and merging , believes cunning is wrong , and as a scholar or artist doesn't […] 1989, Pilgrimage, volume 15, Human Sciences Press, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 7
2. Morally corrupt.
   If something is evil, it is never mandatory.
   Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil?
   I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […] 1848, Anne Brontë, chapter 41, in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
   To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […] 1967, Chaim Potok, chapter 1, in The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Columbine, published 2003, page 14
3. Unpleasant, foul (of odour, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
   1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100, An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]
   1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282, It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.
   He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window. 1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, published 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125
   Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history. 1993, Carol Shields, chapter 1, in The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, page 39
4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
   […] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man. 1931, Pearl S. Buck, chapter 15, in The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, published 1944, page 122
5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
   an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop
6. (computing, programming, slang) Undesirable; harmful; bad practice.
   Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.

noun

1. Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
   The evils of society include murder and theft.
   Evil lacks spirituality, hence its need for mind control.
   IS ANYTHING more obvious than the presence of evil in the universe? Its nagging, prehensile tentacles project into every level of human existence. We may debate the origin of evil, but only a victim of superficial optimism would debate its reality. Evil is stark, grim, and colossally real. 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Death of Evil upon the Seashore”, in Strength to Love, New York: Pocket Books, published 1964, →OCLC, page 71
2. Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
3. (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.

Etymology 2

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel (“evilly”), from Old English yfele, yfle (“evilly”), a derivative of the noun yfel (“evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").

adv

1. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
2. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
3. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.
   It went evil with him.
   But (as the Poet ſaith) Malè ſarta gratia, nequicquam coit, & reſcinditur: Friendſhip, that is but euill peeced, will not ioine cloſe, but falleth aſunder againe: 1570, William Lambard, quoting Horace, A Perambulation of Kent, published 1596, page 341