overwordExplorer
SPANISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mal.

badly, poorly, ill

3 characters1 syllables approx.Español language

Meaning & usage

adv/ˈmal/[ˈmal]

  1. badly, poorly, ill

    No hables mal de los muertos.
    Qué mal.

  2. awry, amiss, wrong, wrongly

    Tu plan maestro salió mal bastante rápido

  3. hard (functions as an adverb in Spanish but translates as an adjective in English)

    Estoy pasándolo mal con todo ahora mismo.

  4. Used as an intensifier, very

    Argentina · colloquial

  5. yes

    Argentina · colloquial
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *(s)molos? Proto-Italic *malos Archaic Latin malos Latin malus Latin male Spanish mal Inherited from Latin male.

noun/ˈmal/[ˈmal]

  1. evil, harm; a bad thing or situation

    masculine
    de mal en peor

  2. disease, illness, ailment

    masculine
    ... le curaremos, si es que su mal tiene cura...

  3. worse (substantive)

    masculine
    para bien o para mal
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *(s)molos? Proto-Italic *malos Archaic Latin malos Latin malus Latin male Spanish mal Inherited from Latin male.

adj/ˈmal/[ˈmal]

  1. apocopic form of malo bad; evil

    abbreviation · alt-of · apocopic · masculine

  2. amiss, awry, off, wrong

    abbreviation · apocopic · masculine
    Me di cuenta de que algo estaba mal.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *(s)molos? Proto-Italic *malos Archaic Latin malos Latin malus Proto-Indo-European *-om Proto-Italic *-om Latin -um Latin malum Old Spanish malo Old Spanish mal Spanish mal Inherited from Old Spanish mal, malo, from Latin malus, possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- (“bad, wrong”).

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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.