malignant

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin malignāns (“acting maliciously”), the present participle of malignō (“to act maliciously, contrive maliciously”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} a verb of the Vulgate.^[2] Etymonline adds that it came also from French malignant,^[8] and the OED compares Anglo-Norman malignant (“an evil-doer”), recorded from about 1120, and Middle French malignant (about 1500).^[2][9] The verb comes from Latin malignus (“wicked, ill-disposed”),^[2][8][10] formed from male (“badly”) (from malus (“bad”)) and -gnus (“born”), from gignō (“to beget”), from Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).^[8] Klein compares benignant.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Disposed to rebel against God or against established authority; disaffected: 1542, in H. Brinkelow's Lamentacion.^[2][3] The Oxford Dictionary of English likewise dates the word to the mid 16th century, with this early sense,^[12] and Dictionary.com to 1535–45.^[6] Etymonline starts with the medical sense, "virulent, tending to produce death", in the 1560s.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word was first used with allusion, often in Protestant polemic, to the Vulgate's Psalm 25:5, “Odivi ecclesiam malignantium”, and the church malignant, the followers of Antichrist, was applied by Protestant writers to the Church of Rome.^[2][8] In the English Civil War, from 1641, supporters of Parliament called the Royalists malignants,^[2][12][10] and in 1642 Charles I turned the name back on the Parliamentary party.^[13] Of diseases, the word meant potentially fatal, extremely severe or highly contagious from 1568, in a description of the plague;^[2] it is now used chiefly of tumours that invade nearby tissue and spread.^[2][3][10] Of people, "full of intense ill will" is recorded from 1592,^[2] and Etymonline dates "disposed to cause suffering" to the 1590s.^[8] From 1608 it also meant exerting an evil influence, and in astrology it was used of the stars and planets, as in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1.^[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as malign, envious and malicious, quoting Shakespeare's "O malignant and ill-boading stars!".^[14] Middle English had used the simpler malign as the adjective.^[8]

Timeline

• 1542 – disposed to rebel against God or authority (obsolete by 1659).^[2][3]
• 1564 – evil in nature and effects, gravely harmful.^[2]
• 1568 – of a disease, potentially fatal or exceptionally contagious.^[2]
• 1592 – full of intense ill will towards others.^[2]
• 1597 – noun, a person disaffected towards established authority.^[2]
• 1608 – exerting a baleful influence; in astrology, of the stars.^[2]
• 1641 – applied by Parliament's supporters to the Royalists in the English Civil War.^[2]
• 1642 – noun, a supporter of the Royalist cause (obsolete by 1874).^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Feeling or showing intense ill will; wishing harm to others: a malignant rumour about her rival.^[2][3][10]
2. Very harmful in nature or effect; baleful or malign.^[2][3][10]
3. (medicine) Tending to cause death or to grow worse; of a tumour, invading nearby tissue and spreading through the body: The biopsy showed the growth was malignant.^[2][3][10]
4. (obsolete, 1542–1659) Disposed to rebel against God or established authority; disaffected.^[2][3]

Noun

1. (history) In the English Civil War, a supporter of the royalist cause, as the Parliamentarians called them (obsolete, 1642–1874).^[2][3][10]
2. (archaic) A person disaffected towards established authority; a malcontent.^[2][3]

Word family

• malignantly
• malignancy
• semimalignant
• premalignant
• nonmalignant
• unmalignant

Related words

• malign
• benignant
• benign
• malice

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
8. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
10. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.