Evils

How to spell evils

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce evils

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does evils mean?

1. nounProfoundly wicked or harmful things, or specific sources of harm and suffering.

Evils in a sentence

• The report listed poverty and unemployment among society's worst evils.

• Voters often feel forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

Where does evils come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of 'evil', a word that comes straight from Old English 'yfel', meaning bad, harmful, or wicked. That Old English form goes back to a Proto-Germanic root that gave related words in Dutch ('euvel') and older German, all carrying the general sense of something exceeding proper limits or going wrong. For most of its early life the word simply meant 'bad' in a broad way, covering disease, misfortune, and poor quality, before it narrowed over the centuries toward the strong moral sense of profound wickedness that dominates today. The plural 'evils' has long been used for specific harmful things or social ills, as in the familiar phrase 'the lesser of two evils'. The spelling stays refreshingly regular: the single 'l' before the plural 's' is the only point where writers occasionally hesitate, since the word can sound as though it ends in a doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• evil (from Old English yfel: bad, wicked)
• -s (plural)