evil

«evil» in Mova's school dictionary: very bad and cruel, wanting to hurt others — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (evil, more evil, most evil); noun (evil, evils)

meaning for a pupil

1) Evil means very bad and cruel, wanting to hurt others. tree →

2) Evil is great wickedness and harm. tree →

3) An evil is a very bad thing that causes harm, as in «the lesser of two evils». tree →

4) The evil can mean evil people, the wicked ones. tree →

sense in the lessons

In fairy tales and stories, evil characters, such as wicked witches and villains, fight against good ones, and good usually wins. In everyday talk it is sometimes used playfully («an evil grin»). Phrases: «good and evil», «an evil plan», «the lesser of two evils».

examples

• The evil witch cast a spell on the princess. tree →
• In the end, good defeated evil. tree →
• The villain had an evil plan to steal the crown. tree →
• He gave an evil laugh in the school play. tree →
• Bullying is cruel, not just naughty. tree →
• Choosing between them was the lesser of two evils. tree →
• The cat gave the dog an evil look. tree →
• Kindness is thrown away upon the evil. tree →

note

As a noun it is usually uncountable. Stronger than «bad» or «naughty». Real people are complicated: in real life it is better to call actions wrong than to call people evil.

In the corpora

• They are not evil; they just found an easy place to live.
• Animals don't choose good or evil the way people do; their behaviour has reasons like food, safety and temperature.
• God told Adam and Eve they could eat from every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• Joseph told his brothers: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Genesis 50:20).
• "Everyone who does evil hates the light" (John 3:20).

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «evil» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.