VocabauraVOCABAURA

malign

adjective · verb

Simple meaning

Evil or harmful in nature or influence.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

muhlyn

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

məˈlaɪn

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Evil or harmful in nature or influence

  2. Evil or malignant in disposition, nature, intent or influence.

  3. Malevolent.

  4. oncology

    Malignant.

verb

  1. transitive

    To make defamatory statements about; to slander or traduce.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Evil or harmful in nature or influence

Used this way, malign is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Negative
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Moderate
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Serious and weighty
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • malefic , rarer, so it draws attention
  • maleficent , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use malign

  • “Prompted by malign motives.”adjective

Share your sentence

Write your own example sentence using “malign”. We review each one before it appears.

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Evil

malign influencemalign powermalign forcemalign intent

Other combinations

malign spiritmalign fatemalign effects

Tap the highlighted word to open its own entry.

Similar Words, What’s the Difference?

Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.

  • malevolent

    Having an evil or harmful influence.

  • malefic

    Having an evil or harmful influence.

  • maleficent

    Harmful or evil in intent or effect.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

adjective

Sense: evil or harmful in nature or influence

malevolentmaleficRaremaleficentRare

verb

Sense: to make defamatory statements about

traduceRare

Use This Word

See how this word sounds in a real sentence.

Ask Vocabaura

Understand the word your way.

What Does It Mean Here?

Words can change meaning depending on context.

Use it yourself

Knowing “malign” starts when you use it. Pick a next step, all free.

Know the meaning? Practice using it in a real situation, free, no credits.

Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.