Where does “malice” come from?
Malice comes from Old French malice, from Latin malitia meaning badness or wickedness, derived from the adjective malus meaning bad, with the abstract noun suffix -ia.
malice (English): Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or...
Definitions
- Intention to harm or deprive in an illegal or...
Ancestry of “malice”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Middle English | malice | — |
| 2 | Old French | malice | malice, evilness, evil intentions; malicious act |
| 3 | Latin | malitia | a bad quality; badness, wicked; spite, malice; an... |
| 4 | Latin | -itia | -ness, -ity |
| 5 | Latin | -ia | Used to form a feminine abstract noun, usually... |
| 6 | Latin | -ius | forming adjectives from nouns; nominative neuter... |
| 7 | Proto-Italic | -jōs | Forms comparative adjectives |
| 8 | Proto-Indo-European | -yós | Creates adjectives from noun or verb stems |