nefarious.
Sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.
Meaning & usage
Sinful, villainous, criminal, or wicked, especially when noteworthy or notorious for such characteristics.
Aliens have a nefarious connotation in many science fiction books.
Where this word comes from
From Latin nefārius (“execrable, abominable”), from nefās (“something contrary to divine law, an impious deed, sin, crime”), from ne- (“not”) + fās (“the dictates of religion, divine law”), which is related to Latin for (“to speak, to say”) and cognate to Ancient Greek φημί (phēmí, “to say”).
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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.