Prologue: Let us listen to the story of bad words! Not really! I will tell about words which mean evil things or bad things, not the slang words! All these bad things come from Latin malus, which means bad, evil.
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In my last post I have told about some bad words. Now I am telling about others.
Our Today's journey will start with Malevolent. Add the Latin root volent (wishing) with malus and you can construct the adjective malevolent, wishing evil or harm! For example: "All About Words" site does not allow people with malevolent attitudes to become a member!
Our next word is maleficient. Those who have watched the movie "Sleeping Beauty" (1959) by Walt Disney, already know the meaning of this word! Maleficent is a fictional character and the main antagonist of this movie.
Maleficent in the movie "Sleeping Beauty"
Maleficent is the self-proclaimed "Mistress of All Evil" who curses the infant Princess Aurora after not being invited to the baby's christening.Add the root facio, factus, to do or to make ( also spelled as fec-, fic-, factus- or as a verb ending ,-fy in english words), to form the word maleficient, doing harm or evil! Here -ent is an adjectvite suffix. Malificent and malaign are synonymous.
This time, our word is Malefactor. Instead of adding -ent in maleficient, add -tor a noun suffix to form this word. It means a crime, an evil deed. For example: He is a well-known criminal lawyer who had saved a many malefactor from going to jail.
Malediction was made from the Latin root dico, dictus, to say or tell. That is a curse, an evil saying! For example: A malediction was pronounced by the witch against the village and ever since there has been no fresh water there.
Our last word is Malapropism. It comes from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's 1775 play "The Rivals", and in particular the character Mrs. Malaprop. Sheridan presumably named his character Mrs. Malaprop, whose
A Scene from the drama "The Rivals".
grandiloquent impulses led her to use slightly but ludicrously the wrong word. The most familiar amongst her blunders are ‘contagious countries’ (for contiguous), ‘a supercilious knowledge in accounts’ (for superficial) et cetera! So, the meaning of this word is: The unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar.
There are many other bad words, like: Maladroit, malicious, Malady, malice. And obviously the joint words: malpractice, malfunction, malnutrition et cetera. But all have the notion of bad or evil.
At last, to female viewers: You may think "male" comes from the root malus! But sorry to say, a big No! It comes from Latin root: masculus.
Thank you, Hopefully next time I will bring good words for you!
