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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

malus.

The loss or return of performance-related compensation originally paid by an employer to an employee as a result of the discovery of a defect in the performance.

5 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmeɪ.ləs//ˈmɑː.ləs//ˈmæ.ləs/
  1. The loss or return of performance-related compensation originally paid by an employer to an employee as a result of the discovery of a defect in the performance.

    When bank fired the loan originator, they recovered the last two years of her bonuses under the malus clause in her contract.
  2. A penalty or negative thing.

    rare
Where this word comes from

From Latin malus, by analogy with bonus (“additional compensation”). Doublet of mal.

noun
  1. A plant of the genus Malus (the apples).

Where this word comes from

From Latin mālus and translingual Malus.

noun
  1. plural of malu

    form-of · plural
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.