bad
/bæd/ adjective, adverb, noun, interjection, verb
Also a form of bid
Forms worse badder worst baddest bads badding badded
- adjective Of low quality. “That movie was really bad!”
- adjective Inaccurate; incorrect “A bad guess.”
- adjective Unfavorable; negative; not good. “Hiring practice is very bad in this company.”
- adjective Not suitable or fitting. “Do you think it is a bad idea to confront him directly?”
- adjective Not appropriate, of manners etc. “It is bad manners to talk with your mouth full.”
- adjective Harmful, especially unhealthy; liable to cause health problems. “Lard is bad for you. Smoking is bad for you, too. Grapes are bad for dogs but not for humans.”
- adjective (chiefly applied to a person's state of health) Sickly, unhealthy, unwell. “Joe's in a bad way; he can't even get out of bed.”
- adjective The injured or weak one of a pair of body parts, where the other one is healthy. “I accidentally put my weight on my bad leg and fell over.”
- adjective (informal, of a draft/check) Not covered by funds on account. “He gave me a bad check.”
- adjective Bold, daring, and tough. “He's the baddest guy in town!”
- adjective (semantic change, amelioration, contranymic) Good, superlative, excellent, cool. “Man, that new car you bought is bad!”
- adjective (US) Overly promiscuous, licentious.
- adjective (originally African-American Vernacular, of a woman) Very attractive; hot, sexy. “Hopefully I can pull some bad bitches tonight.”
- adjective (chiefly in "bad boy", "bad girl", and similar phrases) Attractive due to (one's) rebellious nature. “That boy is the baddest!”
- adverb (now colloquial) Badly; poorly. “I didn't do too bad in the last exam.”
- adverb (intensifier) Badly; severely, extremely, passionately, eagerly. “Please come back, baby. I miss you so bad!”
- noun Something that is bad; a harm or evil.
- noun (slang, with possessive determiner) Error; mistake.
- noun (countable, uncountable, economics) An item (or kind of item) of merchandise with negative value; an unwanted good.
- interjection Used to scold a misbehaving child or pet. “Bad! You know you're not allowed in the kitchen after dinner.”
Synonyms
cruddy lousy shoddy ass base below par bottom-shelf BTEC bum cheap cheap and nasty cheapshit cheesy chintzy coffee-and crap crappo crappy craptastic crapperific badness big tough spoiled spoilt regretful sorry uncollectible risky high-risk
Antonyms
adequate advantageous beneficial benevolent choice competent excellent exceptional first-class first-rate good honest
Etymology
From Middle English bad, badde (“wicked, evil, depraved”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a shortening of Old English bæddel (“hermaphrodite”) (for loss of -el compare Middle English muche from Old English myċel, and Middle English wenche from Old English wenċel), or at least related to it and/or to bǣ̆dan (“to defile”), compare Old High German pad (“hermaphrodite”).
Alternatively, perhaps a loan from Old Norse into Middle English, compare Norwegian bad (“effort, trouble, fear”, neuter noun), East Danish bad (“damage, destruction, fight”, neuter noun), from the Proto-Germanic noun *badą, whence also Proto-Germanic *badōną (“to frighten”), Old Saxon undarbadōn (“to frighten”), Norwegian Nynorsk bada (“to weigh down, press”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ- (“to bend, press, push, oppress”). False cognate of Persian بد (bad).
Unknown.
From Middle English bad, from Old English bæd, first- and third-person singular indicative past tense of biddan (“to ask”).
Webster’s 1913
- verb of Bid. Bade. [Obs.] Dryden.
- adjective Wanting good qualities, whether physical or moral; injurious, hurtful, inconvenient, offensive, painful, unfavorable, or defective, either physically or morally; evil; vicious; wicked; --the opposite of good; as a bad man; bad conduct; bad habits; bad soil; bad health; bad crop; bad news.
Etymology [Probably fr. AS. bæddel hermaphrodite; cf. bædling effeminate fellow.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bad”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details