different between evil vs beastly

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?-v?l, ?-v?l, IPA^(key): /?i?v?l/, /?i?v?l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?iv?l/
• Hyphenation: evil
• Rhymes: -i?v?l

Etymology 1

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel, from Old English yfel, from Proto-West Germanic *ubil, from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (compare Saterland Frisian eeuwel, Dutch euvel, Low German övel, German übel), from Proto-Indo-European *h?upélos (compare Old Irish fel (“bad, evil”), from Proto-Celtic *u?elos), diminutive of *h?wep(h?)-, *h?wap- (“treat badly”) (compare Hittite ???????????????? (huwapp-ⁱ, “to mistreat, harass”), ???????????????????? (huwappa-, “evil, badness”)), or alternatively from *upélos (“evil”, literally “going over or beyond (acceptable limits)”), from Proto-Indo-European *upo, *h?ewp- (“down, up, over”).

Adjective

evil (comparative eviller or eviler or more evil, superlative evillest or evilest or most evil)

1. Intending to harm; malevolent.
   • 1866, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter 47,^[1]

     For a good while the Miss Brownings were kept in ignorance of the evil tongues that whispered hard words about Molly.

   • 1916, Zane Grey, The Border Legion, New York: Harper & Bros., Chapter 10, p. 147,^[2]

     He looked at her shapely person with something of the brazen and evil glance that had been so revolting to her in the eyes of those ruffians.

   • 2006, Ng?g? wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Pantheon, Book Three, Section II, Chapter 3, p. 351,^[3]

     “Before this, I never had any cause to suspect my wife of any conspiracy.”

     “You mean it never crossed your mind that she might have been told to whisper evil thoughts in your ear at night?”

2. Morally corrupt.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act III, Scene 3,^[4]

     Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,

     When death’s approach is seen so terrible.

   • 1848, Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Chapter 41,^[5]

     I had much trouble at first in breaking him of those evil habits his father had taught him to acquire […]

   • 1967, Chaim Potok, The Chosen, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 2003, Chapter 1, p. 14,^[6]

     To the rabbis who taught in the Jewish parochial schools, baseball was an evil waste of time […]

3. Unpleasant, foul (of odour, taste, mood, weather, etc.).
   • 1660, John Harding (translator), Paracelsus his Archidoxis, London: W.S., Book 7, “Of an Odoriferous Specifick,” p. 100,^[7]

     An Odoriferous Specifick […] is a Matter that takes away Diseases from the Sick, no otherwise then as Civet drives away the stinck of Ordure by its Odour; for you are to observe, That the Specifick doth permix it self with this evil Odour of the Dung; and the stink of the Dung cannot hurt, no[r] abide there […]

   • 1897, H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, Chapter 18,^[8]

     He awoke in an evil temper […]

   • 1937, Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana, London: Macmillan, Part V, “Mazar-i-Sherif,” p. 282,^[9]

     It was an evil day, sticky and leaden: Oxiana looked as colourless and suburban as India.

   • 1958, Graham Greene, Our Man in Havana, Penguin, 1979, Part Four, Chapter 1, p. 125,^[10]

     He herded them into a small and evil toilet and then through a window.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, Chapter One, p. 39,^[11]

     Everyone in the tiny, crowded, hot, and evil-smelling kitchen […] has been invited to participate in a moment of history.

4. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous.
   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act V, Scene 6,^[12]

     The owl shrieked at thy birth,—an evil sign;

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Deuteronomy 22.19,^[13]

     […] he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel:

   • 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes in Paradise Regain’d, to which is added Samson Agonistes, London: John Starkey, p. 89, lines 438-439,^[14]

     A little stay will bring some notice hither,

     For evil news rides post, while good news baits.

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: Modern Library, 1944, Chapter 15, p. 122,^[15]

     “ […] with bandits and robbers roving over the land in these evil times of famine and war, how can it be said that this one or that stole anything? Hunger makes thief of any man.”

5. (obsolete) Having harmful qualities; not good; worthless or deleterious.

   an evil beast; an evil plant; an evil crop

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 7.18,^[16]

     A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.

6. (computing, programming, slang) undesirable; harmful; bad practice

   Global variables are evil; storing processing context in object member variables allows those objects to be reused in a much more flexible way.

Synonyms

• nefarious
• malicious
• malevolent
• wicked
• See also Thesaurus:evil

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

evil (countable and uncountable, plural evils)

1. Moral badness; wickedness; malevolence; the forces or behaviors that are the opposite or enemy of good.

   • The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.

2. Something which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; something which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; harm; injury; mischief.
3. (obsolete) A malady or disease; especially in combination, as in king's evil, colt evil.
   • He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched for the evil.

Antonyms

• good

Derived terms

Translations

References

Etymology 2

From Middle English yvel, evel, ivel, uvel (“evilly”), from Old English yfele, yfle (“evilly”), a derivative of the noun yfel (“evil”). Often reinterpreted as the noun in the later language (as in "to speak evil").

Adverb

evil (comparative more evil, superlative most evil)

2. (obsolete) wickedly, evilly, iniquitously
3. (obsolete) injuriously, harmfully; in a damaging way.
4. (obsolete) badly, poorly; in an insufficient way.

   It went evil with him.

Usage notes

This adverb was usually used in conjunction with speak.

References

• James A. H. Murray [et al.], editors (1884–1928) , “Evil, adv.”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume III (D–E), London: Clarendon Press, OCLC 15566697, page 350, column 2.

Anagrams

• Levi, Viel, live, veil, vile, vlei

Middle English

Etymology 1

Adjective

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evil”)

Etymology 2

Adverb

evil

1. Alternative form of yvel (“evilly”)

English

Etymology

From Middle English beestly, bestely, beastelich, equivalent to beast +? -ly. Compare West Frisian bistachtich (“beastly”), Dutch beestachtig (“beastly”), German biestig (“beastly”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?bi?stli/
• Rhymes: -i?stli

Adjective

beastly (comparative beastlier or more beastly, superlative beastliest or most beastly)

1. (Britain) Pertaining to, or having the form, nature, or habits of, a beast.
2. (Britain) Similar to the nature of a beast; contrary to the nature and dignity of man

   Synonyms: brutal, filthy

3. (Britain, dated) Abominable.

4. (of computing hardware) Powerful, having a powerful appearance
   • 2010, January 11, Matthew DeCarlo, “Silverstone mini-ITX case can fit Radeon HD 5970”, TechSpot:

     In addition to a Core i7-860 with a full-sized heatsink and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the company showed its SUGO SG07 housing today's most beastly graphics card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970, which is about 30cm long.

   • 2014, March 21, Tycho de Feijter, “Hummer H2 is a Big Black Beast in the Rain in China”, CarNewsChina.com:

     A very big, very black, and very beastly Hummer H2, Spotted in China in in the rain the great city of Zigong in Sichuan Province.

   • 2018, October 16, Chris Smith, “Huawei just unveiled the most beastly Android phone the world has ever seen”, BGR:

     Huawei’s Mate 20 phones have instantly become the best iPhone XS rivals out there, at least on paper, and the high-end model is easily the most beastly Android phone the world has seen so far.

Usage notes

Most often used pejoratively, but sense 4 has predominantly positive connotations. Bestial is more narrow, though also often used pejoratively.

Synonyms

• (like a beast): bestial, animalian

Derived terms

• beastliness

Translations

Adverb

beastly (comparative more beastly, superlative most beastly)

1. Like a beast; brutishly.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.8:

     Beastly he threwe her downe, ne car'd to spill / Her garments gay with scales of fish that all did fill.

   • 1901, The Literary World - Volume 63 - Page 35:

     They have insulted me most beastly. Moreover, they are, everyone of them, black-satan filthmen.

Anagrams

• baetyls