overwordExplorer
FRENCH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mal.

trouble, difficulty

3 characters1 syllables approx.Français language

Meaning & usage

noun/mal/

  1. trouble, difficulty

    masculine
    J'ai du mal à m'imaginer ça.

  2. pain

    masculine
    J'ai mal à la tête.

  3. evil

    masculine
    Le philosophe abordait de grandes questions du bon et du mal.

  4. damage, harm

    masculine
    Le mal est fait.
Where this word comes from

From Old French mal, from Latin malus, possibly derived from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mel- (“bad, wrong”). Near cognates include Portuguese mal, Italian male and Spanish malo.

adv/mal/

  1. badly

    C'est mal fait.
Where this word comes from

From Old French, from Latin male.

adj/mal/

  1. bad

    bon an, mal an
    bon gré, mal gré
Where this word comes from

From Old French, from Latin male.

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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.