Malign

• POS: Adjective, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: ma=lign

CIDE DICTIONARY

Malign, a. [L. malignus, for maligenus, i. e., of a bad kind or nature; malus bad + the root of genus birth, race, kind: cf. F. malin, masc., maligne, fem. See Malice, Gender, and cf. Benign, Malignant.].

•  Having an evil disposition toward others; harboring violent enmity; malevolent; malicious; spiteful; -- opposed to benign.  [1913 Webster]

  "Witchcraft may be by operation of malign spirits."  [1913 Webster]
•  Unfavorable; unpropitious; pernicious; tending to injure; as, a malign aspect of planets.  [1913 Webster]
•  Malignant; as, a malign ulcer.  Bacon.  [1913 Webster]

Malign, v. t. [Cf. L. malignare. See Malign, a.].

•  To treat with malice; to show hatred toward; to abuse; to wrong; to injure.  [1913 Webster]

  "The people practice what mischiefs and villainies they will against private men, whom they malign by stealing their goods, or murdering them."  [1913 Webster]
•  To speak great evil of; to traduce; to defame; to slander; to vilify; to asperse.  [1913 Webster]

  "To be envied and shot at; to be maligned standing, and to be despised falling."  [1913 Webster]

Malign, v. i. 

 To entertain malice.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Malign, adj. & v.
--adj.
1 (of a thing) injurious.
2 (of a disease) malignant.
3 malevolent.
--v.tr. speak ill of; slander.

Derivative

maligner n. malignity n. (pl. -ies). malignly adv.

Etymology

ME f. OF malin maligne, malignier f. LL malignare contrive maliciously f. L malignus f. malus bad: cf. BENIGN

THESAURUS

Malign

antagonistic, antipathetic, asperse, atrocious, backbite, bad-mouth, baleful, baneful, barbaric, barbarous, befoul, besmirch, bespatter, bestial, bitchy, blacken, bloody, blow upon, brutal, brutish, calumniate, cast aspersions on, cast reflections on, catching, communicable, contagious, corroding, corrosive, corrupting, corruptive, counterproductive, cussed, damaging, deadly, death-bringing, deathful, deathly, decry, defame, defile, deleterious, denigrate, depreciate, derogate, despiteful, destructive, detract, detrimental, disadvantageous, disparage, disserviceable, distressing, envenomed, evil, fatal, feral, ferine, ferocious, fierce, harmful, hateful, hostile, hurtful, infectious, infective, inhuman, inimical, iniquitous, injurious, internecine, invidious, kill-crazy, killing, lethal, libel, malefic, maleficent, malevolent, malicious, malignant, mean, mephitic, merciless, miasmal, miasmatic, miasmic, mischievous, mortal, murderous, nasty, noisome, noncivilized, noxious, ominous, ornery, pernicious, pestiferous, pestilential, pitiless, poisonous, pollute, prejudicial, rancorous, revile, ruthless, sanguinary, savage, scandal, scandalize, scatheful, slander, slur, smear, smirch, soil, spatter, spiteful, stain, sully, taint, tameless, tarnish, tear down, toxic, toxicant, toxiferous, traduce, uncivilized, ungentle, untamed, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vicious, vilify, virulent, vituperate, wicked, wild

ROGET THESAURUS

Malign

Badness

N badness, hurtfulness, virulence, evil doer, bane, plague spot, evil star, ill wind, hoodoo, Jonah, snake in the grass, skeleton in the closet, amari aliquid, thorn in the side, malignity, malevolence, tender mercies, ill-treatment, annoyance, molestation, abuse, oppression, persecution, outrage, misusage, injury, knockout drops, badness, peccancy, abomination, painfulness, pestilence, guilt, depravity, hurtful, harmful, scathful, baneful, baleful, injurious, deleterious, detrimental, noxious, pernicious, mischievous, full of mischief, mischief-making, malefic, malignant, nocuous, noisome, prejudicial, disserviceable, disadvantageous, wide-wasting, unlucky, sinister, obnoxious, untoward, disastrous, oppressive, burdensome, onerous, malign, corrupting &c (corrupt), virulent, venomous, envenomed, corrosive, poisonous, deadly, destructive, inauspicious, bad, ill, arrant, as bad as bad can be, dreadful, horrid, horrible, dire, rank, peccant, foul, fulsome, rotten, rotten at the core, vile, base, villainous, mean, injured, deteriorated, unsatisfactory, exceptionable indifferent, below par, illcontrived, ill-conditioned, wretched, sad, grievous, deplorable, lamentable, pitiful, pitiable, woeful, evil, wrong, depraved, shocking, reprehensible, hateful, hateful as a toad, abominable, detestable, execrable, cursed, accursed, confounded, damned, damnable, infernal, diabolic, unadvisable, unprofitable, incompetent, irremediable, badly, wrong, ill, to one's cost, where the shoe pinches, bad is the best: the worst come to the worst, herba mala presto cresco, wrongs unredressed or insults unavenged.

Malevolence

VB be malevolent, bear spleen, harbor spleen, bear a grudge, harbor a grudge, bear malice, betray the cloven foot, show the cloven foot, hurt, annoy, injure, harm, wrong, do harm to, do an ill office to, outrage, disoblige, malign, plant a thorn in the breast, molest, worry, harass, haunt, harry, bait, tease, throw stones at, play the devil with, hunt down, dragoon, hound, persecute, oppress, grind, maltreat, illtreat, ill-use, wreak one's malice on, do one's worst, break a butterfly on the wheel, dip one's hands in blood, imbrue one's hands in blood, have no mercy.

N malevolence, bad intent, bad intention, unkindness, diskindness, ill nature, ill will, ill blood, bad blood, enmity, hate, malignity, malice, malice prepense, maliciousness, spite, despite, resentment, uncharitableness, incompassionateness, gall, venom, rancor, rankling, virulence, mordacity, acerbity churlishness, hardness of heart, heart of stone, obduracy, cruelty, cruelness, brutality, savagery, ferity, ferocity, barbarity, inhumanity, immanity, truculence, ruffianism, evil eye, cloven foot, torture, vivisection, ill turn, bad turn, affront, outrage, atrocity, ill usage, intolerance, persecution, tender mercies, unkindest cut of all, malevolent, unbenevolent, unbenign, ill-disposed, ill-intentioned, ill-natured, ill-conditioned, ill-contrived, evil-minded, evil- disposed, black-browed, malicious, malign, malignant, rancorous, despiteful, spiteful, mordacious, caustic, bitter, envenomed, acrimonious, virulent, unamiable, uncharitable, maleficent, venomous, grinding, galling, harsh, disobliging, unkind, unfriendly, ungracious, inofficious, invidious, uncandid, churlish, surly, sullen, cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, black-hearted, hard-hearted, flint-hearted, marble-hearted, stony-hearted, hard of heart, unnatural, ruthless, relentless, cruel, brutal, brutish, savage, savage as a bear, savage as a tiger, ferine, ferocious, inhuman, barbarous, barbaric, semibarbaric, fell, untamed, tameless, truculent, incendiary, bloodthirsty, atrocious, bloodyminded, fiendish, fiendlike, demoniacal, diabolic, diabolical, devilish, infernal, hellish, Satanic, Tartaran, malevolently, with bad intent, cruel as death, hard unkindness' alter'd eye, homo homini lupus, mala mens, malus animus, rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind, sharp-tooth'd unkindness.

Detraction

VB detract, derogate, decry, deprecate, depreciate, disparage, run down, cry down, backcap, belittle, sneer at, criticize, pull to pieces, pick a hole in one's coat, asperse, cast aspersions, blow upon, bespatter, blacken, vilify, vilipend, avile, give a dog a bad name, brand, malign, muckrake, backbite, libel, lampoon, traduce, slander, defame, calumniate, bear false witness against, speak ill of behind one's back, fling dirt, anathematize, dip the pen in gall, view in a bad light, impugn (disparage the motives of), assail, attack, oppose, denounce, accuse.