mal- 1 a combining form meaning “bad,”“wrongful,”“ill,” occurring originally in loanwords from French (malapert); on this model, used in the formation of other words (malfunction; malcontent). Mal. 2 abbreviation for Bible.Malachi....
sans penserà mal without meaning any harm dire du mal de qn to say bad things about sb il n'y a pas de malà qc there is no harm in sth 3. mal sans pl (maladie, malaise): mal illness mal de l'air airsickness mal de mer seasickness mal des montagnes altitude sickness ...
mal- 2 of 2 combining form 1 a : bad malpractice b : badly malodorous 2 a : abnormal malformation b : abnormally malformed 3 a : inadequate maladjustment b : inadequately malnourished Word History Etymology Combining form Middle English, from Anglo-French, from mal bad (from Latin...
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a combining form meaning “bad,”“wrongful,”“ill,” occurring orig. in loanwords from French (maladroit); on this model, used in the formation of other words (malcontent; malfunction). Comparemale-. [< Old French, representingmaladv. (< Latinmalebadly) and adj. (< Latinmalusbad)] ...
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishmal-/mæl/prefixbador badlya malformed limb(=wrongly shaped)The children had been maltreated(=treated cruelly).Examples from the Corpusmal-•acomputermalfunction•amalodorousroom Originmal-Old Frenchmal“bad”, fromLatinmalus ...
word-forming element meaning "bad, badly, ill, poorly, wrong, wrongly," from French mal (adv.), from Old French mal (adj., adv.) "evil, ill, wrong, wrongly" (9c.), from Latin male (adv.) "badly," or malus(adj.) "bad, evil" (fem. mala, neuter malum), of unknown origin,...
Origin of malcontent1 1575–85; < Middle French, Old French; mal-, content 2Discover More Example Sentences If a coworker or kin finds herself cornered in a dour discussion with the malcontent, she will activate the most creative parts of her mind to engineer an excuse to exit the encoun...
In Play: It is difficult to think of this word as "in play", given its meaning, but here is an example: "The senator resigned before the Senate Ethics Committee could initiate an investigation into possible malversation." Many people in public office seem to be unable to avoid the ...
Malis usually an adverb meaningpoorly,badly,improperly, etc. It can also be used in front of a past participle in order to give that verb a negative meaning. Mauvais, in the rare instances where it is used as an adverb, meansbad. ...