Villainy

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: vil=lain=y

CIDE DICTIONARY

Villainy, n. [OE. vilanie, OF. vilanie, vilainie, vileinie, vilanie, LL. villania. See Villain, n.].

•  The quality or state of being a villain, or villainous; extreme depravity; atrocious wickedness; as, the villainy of the seducer.  Chaucer.  [1913 Webster]

  "The commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy."  [1913 Webster]
•  Abusive, reproachful language; discourteous speech; foul talk.  [1913 Webster]

  "He never yet not vileinye ne said
  In all his life, unto no manner wight."  [1913 Webster]

  "In our modern language, it [foul language] is termed villainy, as being proper for rustic boors, or men of coarsest education and employment."  [1913 Webster]

  "Villainy till a very late day expressed words foul and disgraceful to the utterer much oftener than deeds."  [1913 Webster]
•  The act of a villain; a deed of deep depravity; a crime.  [1913 Webster]

  "Such villainies roused Horace into wrath."  [1913 Webster]

  "That execrable sum of all villainies commonly called a slave trade."  John Wesley.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

Villainy, n. (pl. -ies)
1 villainous behaviour.
2 a wicked act.

Etymology

OF vilenie (as VILLAIN)

THESAURUS

Villainy

abomination, atrocity, bad, baseness, chicanery, degradation, disgrace, error, evil, infamy, iniquity, knavery, knavishness, moral turpitude, obliquity, peccancy, rascality, rascalry, reprobacy, roguery, roguishness, scampishness, scandal, scoundrelism, shame, sin, turpitude, vileness, villainousness, wrong

ROGET THESAURUS

Villainy

Improbity

N improbity, dishonesty, dishonor, deviation from rectitude, disgrace, fraud, lying, bad faith, Punic faith, mala fides, Punica fides, infidelity, faithlessness, Judas kiss, betrayal, breach of promise, breach of trust, breach of faith, prodition, disloyalty, treason, high treason, apostasy, nonobservance, shabbiness, villainy, villany, baseness, abjection, debasement, turpitude, moral turpitude, laxity, trimming, shuffling, perfidy, perfidiousness, treachery, double dealing, unfairness, knavery, roguery, rascality, foul play, jobbing, jobbery, graft, bribery, venality, nepotism, corruption, job, shuffle, fishy transaction, barratry, sharp practice, heads I win tails you lose, mouth honor, dishonest, dishonorable, unconscientious, unscrupulous, fraudulent, knavish, disgraceful, wicked, false-hearted, disingenuous, unfair, one-sided, double, double- hearted, double-tongued, double-faced, timeserving, crooked, tortuous, insidious, Machiavelian, dark, slippery, fishy, perfidious, treacherous, perjured, infamous, arrant, foul, base, vile, ignominious, blackguard, contemptible, unrespectable, abject, mean, shabby, little, paltry, dirty, scurvy, scabby, sneaking, groveling, scrubby, rascally, pettifogging, beneath one, low-minded, low-thoughted, base-minded, undignified, indign, unbecoming, unbeseeming, unbefitting, derogatory, degrading, infra dignitatem, beneath one's dignity, ungentlemanly, ungentlemanlike, unknightly, unchivalric, unmanly, unhandsome, recreant, inglorious, corrupt, venal, debased, mongrel, faithless, of bad faith, false, unfaithful, disloyal, untrustworthy, trustless, trothless, lost to shame, dead to honor, barratrous, dishonestly, mala fide, like a thief in the night, by crooked paths, Int, O tempora!, O mores!, corruptissima respublica plurimae leges.