black-hearted

American  

[blak-hahr-tid] / ˈblækˈhɑr tɪd /

adjective

1. disposed to doing or wishing evil; malevolent; malicious.

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Other Word Forms

• black-heartedly adverb
• black-heartedness noun

Etymology

Origin of black-hearted

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

Just as Crane shifted from war reportage to black-hearted poems, Auster has pivoted from the noir-inspired “New York Trilogy” to abstract, Beckett-esque works like “Travels in the Scriptorium.”

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 21, 2021

This includes Billy Graves, who laments the continued existence of a killer named Curtis Taft, “the most black-hearted of the Whites,” whom he reëncounters in a hospital bed:

From The New Yorker • Feb. 9, 2015

There are several soldiers of various rank, led with gravitas by Graham Winton as goodly Prince Don Pedro and Don John, his scheming, black-hearted brother.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 20, 2013

The royal family which defeated him, the Tudors, ensured he was remembered as a black-hearted villain, capable of killing family and friends.

From BBC • Sep. 7, 2012

If, the winter of seventy-three, Johnny Tremain had a romantic attachment to anyone, it was to that black haired and, as far as he knew, black-hearted, bad-tempered, disagreeable, conceivable ‘cousin’ of his Miss Lavinia Lyte.

From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes