What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Evil vs Villain - What's the difference?

evil | villain |

As nouns the difference between evil and villain

is that evil is moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good while villain is a vile, wicked person.

As an adjective evil

is intending to harm; malevolent.

As a verb villain is

to debase; to degrade.

evil

English

Adjective

  • Intending to harm; malevolent.
  • Do you think that companies that engage in animal testing are evil ?
  • Morally corrupt.
  • an evil plot to kill innocent people
  • * Shakespeare
  • Ah, what a sign it is of evil life, / When death's approach is seen so terrible.
  • Unpleasant. (rfex)
  • Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
  • * Bible, Deuteronomy xxii. 19
  • He hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel.
  • * Shakespeare
  • The owl shrieked at thy birth — an evil sign.
  • * Milton
  • Evil news rides post, while good news baits.
  • (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.
  • an evil''' beast; an '''evil''' plant; an '''evil crop
  • * Bible, Matthew vii. 18
  • A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
  • (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.

    Synonyms

    * nefarious * malicious * malevolent * See also

    Antonyms

    * good

    Derived terms

    * evil eye * evil laugh * evil laughter * evilly * evil-minded * Evil One * evil twin * evilness

    Noun

    (wikipedia evil)
  • Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.
  • * Bible, (Ecclesiastes). ix. 3
  • The heart of the sons of men is full of evil .
  • * , chapter=16
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=The preposterous altruism too!
  • Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm.
  • * (John Milton)
  • evils which our own misdeeds have wrought
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • The evil that men do lives after them.
  • (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil (scrofula).
  • * (Shakespeare)
  • * Addison
  • He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil .

    Antonyms

    * good

    Derived terms

    * axis of evil * evildoer * king's evil * lesser evil * necessary evil * poll evil

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    *

    villain

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (archaic)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (rfc-sense) (en) A vile, wicked person.
  • # An extremely depraved person, or one capable or guilty of great crimes.
  • # A deliberate scoundrel.
  • The bad person in a work of fiction; often the main antagonist of the hero.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1905, author=
  • , title= , chapter=2 citation , passage=Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain , and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.}}
  • * July 18 2012 , Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Rises [http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/]
  • As The Dark Knight Rises brings a close to Christopher Nolan’s staggeringly ambitious Batman trilogy, it’s worth remembering that director chose The Scarecrow as his first villain —not necessarily the most popular among the comic’s gallery of rogues, but the one who set the tone for entire series.
  • Synonyms

    * knave * rascal * scamp * bad guy * cad * See also * See also *antagonist

    Derived terms

    * supervillain * villainess

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To debase; to degrade.
  • ----