Basic Details
Word: Malicious
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Intending to harm, hurt or upset someone.
Synonyms: spiteful, hateful, cruel, mean
Antonyms: kind, harmless, well-meaning
Word origin: Comes from Latin malitia, 'badness', from malus, 'bad'.
How to Spell Malicious
Syllables: ma - li - cious
Tricky part: The ending is cious, with a c, even though it sounds like shus. There is one l.
Watch out for: malicous, malitious, mallicious, maliscious
Memory tip: Malicious grows from malice: keep the c of malice and change its e to ious.
Usage Examples
Example 1: The dog was not malicious; it barked only because it was scared.
Example 2: The cartoon villain gave a malicious grin.
Example 3: The police traced the malicious phone calls to a public booth.
Fun Fact
Malware, the name for computer programs built to damage or spy on a computer, is short for malicious software.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is spelt correctly. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. ferocius 2. malicious 3. ambitous 4. suspicous
a) feeling that someone may have done something wrong
b) having a strong wish to succeed
c) meaning to harm or upset someone on purpose
d) fierce and violent
Show answer
c) meaning to harm or upset someone on purpose. Ambitious, ferocious and suspicious each lost a letter of their ious ending; malicious kept all of it.
Word Connection
Choose the word opposite in meaning to malicious as used in the sentence:
The malicious rumour about the new student spread through the hostel in a single evening.
a) harmless
b) vicious
c) spiteful
d) cruel
Show answer
a) harmless. A malicious rumour is meant to hurt; a harmless one hurts nobody, while the other options mean the same as malicious.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
Someone sent a uoicslima message to all the parents in the class group.
a) malicious
b) malignant
c) meticulous
d) delicious
Show answer
a) malicious. A message meant to hurt is malicious, and the jumble has exactly its nine letters.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Malicious comes from the noun ____.
a) malady
b) malls
c) mallet
d) malice
Show answer
d) malice
2. A malicious act is done ____.
a) without thinking at all
b) to hurt someone deliberately
c) by accident
d) to help a friend
Show answer
b) to hurt someone deliberately
