villain

[ vil-uhn ]

noun

1. a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.

   Synonyms: scamp, rogue, rapscallion, rascal, knave

2. a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot.
3. a person or thing considered to be the cause of something bad:

   Fear is the villain that can sabotage our goals.

4. villein.

villain

/ ˈvɪlən /

noun

1. a wicked or malevolent person
2. (in a novel, play, film, etc) the main evil character and antagonist to the hero
3. humorous.
   a mischievous person; rogue
4. slang:police.
   a criminal
5. history a variant spelling of villein
6. obsolete.
   an uncouth person; boor

Derived Forms

• ˈvillainess, noun:feminine

Other Words From

• sub·villain noun
• under·villain noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of villain¹

First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English vilein, vilain “churlish rustic, serf,” from Middle French, from Vulgar Latin and Medieval Latin villānus “a farm servant, farmhand”; villa, -an

Word History and Origins

Origin of villain¹

C14: from Old French vilein serf, from Late Latin vīllānus worker on a country estate, from Latin: villa

Example Sentences

In Ukraine, the NDM-1 resistance gene has shown up in Klebsiella, a rod-shaped bacterium that has emerged as a singular villain.

From Science Magazine

But it was just as much her villain origin story as it was Oz’s.

From Los Angeles Times

He has a lot of goons whose commitment to ending democracy will overcome their reluctance to be photographed with the cartoonish villains Trump surrounds himself with.

From Salon

In film and television, Nazis, historic and contemporary, remain the ultimate villain, but we really love to hate the British Bad Guy.

From Los Angeles Times

Once the harassment campaign started to get more national attention, thousands of feminists logged on to defend the targets, flooding Twitter with memes and counterarguments that recognized the true villains as the Gamergaters themselves.

From Salon

Related Words

• antihero
• bad guy
• baddie
• baddy
• criminal
• devil
• scoundrel
• sinner