- Today's Word
Malevolent
muh-LEV-uh-lent
Definition
(adjective) Having or showing a desire to cause harm or do evil.
Example
The villain’s malevolent glare sent chills down their spines.
Fun Fact
From Latin male (“badly”) + volens (“wishing”), malevolent literally means “wishing ill.” It’s often reserved for characters or acts that are deliberately cruel. In literature, Disney villains and Gothic horror figures embody malevolence, as do real-world tyrants whose actions stem from malice rather than misunderstanding.
(verb) Combined or mixed two or more separate things — ideas, concepts, or facts — into one, often incorrectly or misleadingly.
Many people have conflated the concepts of sympathy and empathy, using them interchangeably when they actually describe very different emotional responses.
Conflate comes from the Latin conflare, meaning “to blow together” — from con- (“together”) and flare (“to blow”). In ancient usage, it referred literally to melting metals together in a furnace by blowing air on them. By the 17th century, the word had moved into figurative use in English, describing the merging of texts, ideas, or narratives into a single, unified whole.