villainy
Evil or wicked character or behaviourEvil or wicked character or behaviour.
» You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
horsebones · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
6 senses(uncountable)Evil or wicked character or behaviour.
(countable)A wicked or treacherous act.
a criminal or vicious act
(obsolete, uncountable)Ill-treatment, indignity, degrading or shameful treatment of someone.
(obsolete, uncountable)Disgrace, ignominy.
(obsolete, uncountable)The state of being a villein or serf, and by extension servitude or low estate in life.
(obsolete, uncountable)Boorishness, rudeness, bad cultivation or manners.
Examples
4 sentencesYou will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
There’s foul play somewhere, and there’s black villainy brewing, to that I’ll swear!
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.
I wondered vaguely what foul villainy it might be that the Morlocks did under the new moon.
Origin
From Middle English vileinie, vileynye, from Anglo-Norman vilenie, from Old French vilanieFrom Middle English vileinie, vileynye, from Anglo-Norman vilenie, from Old French vilanie.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: villainies| Singular | villainy |
|---|---|
| Plural | villainies |
regular
Synonyms
25 synonyms- the quality of evil by virtue of villainous behavior:villainousness
Antonyms
6 antonymsWord family
1 related wordsLessons for this word
1 lessons- A1Countable and uncountable nouns — Because it can be uncountable
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.