badness

bad ¹  (bd)

adj. worse (wûrs), worst (wûrst)

1. Not achieving an adequate standard; poor: a bad concert.

2. Evil; sinful.

3. Vulgar or obscene: bad language.

4. Informal Disobedient or naughty: bad children.

5. Disagreeable, unpleasant, or disturbing: a bad piece of news.

6. Unfavorable: bad reviews for the play.

7. Not fresh; rotten or spoiled: bad meat.

8. Injurious in effect; detrimental: bad habits.

9. Not working properly; defective: a bad telephone connection.

10. Full of or exhibiting faults or errors: bad grammar.

11. Having no validity; void: passed bad checks.

12. Being so far behind in repayment as to be considered a loss: bad loans.

13. Severe; intense: a bad cold.

14.

a. Being in poor health or in pain: I feel bad today.

b. Being in poor condition; diseased: bad lungs.

15. Sorry; regretful: She feels bad about how she treated you.

16. bad·der, bad·dest Slang Very good; great.

n.

Something that is below standard or expectations, as of ethics or decency: weighing the good against the bad.

adv. Usage Problem

Badly.

Idioms:

in bad Informal

In trouble or disfavor.

my bad Slang

Used to acknowledge that one is at fault.

not half/so bad Informal

Reasonably good.

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[Middle English badde.]

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badness n.

Usage Note: Bad is often used as an adverb in sentences such as The house was shaken up pretty bad or We need water bad. This usage is common in informal speech but is widely regarded as unacceptable in formal writing. In an earlier survey, the sentence His tooth ached so bad he could not sleep was unacceptable to 92 percent of the Usage Panel. · The use of badly with want was once considered incorrect but is now entirely acceptable: We wanted badly to go to the beach. · The adverb badly is often used after verbs such as feel, as in I felt badly about the whole affair. This usage bears analogy to the use of other adverbs with feel, such as strongly in We feel strongly about this issue. Some people prefer to maintain a distinction between feel badly and feel bad, restricting the former to emotional distress and using the latter to cover physical ailments; however, this distinction is not universally observed, so feel badly should be used in a context that makes its meaning clear. · Badly is used in some regions to mean "unwell," as in He was looking badly after the accident. Poorly is also used in this way. In an earlier survey, however, the usage was found unacceptable in formal writing by 75 percent of the Usage Panel.

Our Living Language Most people might think that the slang usage of bad to mean its opposite, "excellent," is a recent innovation of Black English. While it is of Black English origin, this usage has been recorded for over a century; the first known example dates from 1897. Even earlier, beginning in the 1850s, the word appears in the sense "formidable, very tough," as applied to persons. Whether or not the two usages are related, they both illustrate a favorite creative device of informal and slang languageusing a word to mean the opposite of what it "really" means. This is by no means uncommon; people use words sarcastically to mean the opposite of their actual meanings on a daily basis. What is more unusual is for such a usage to be generally accepted within a larger community. Perhaps when the concepts are as basic as "good" and "bad" this general acceptance is made easier. A similar instance is the word uptight, which in the 1960s enjoyed usage in the sense "excellent" alongside its now-current, negative meaning of "stiff."

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bad ²  (bd)

v. Archaic

A past tense of bid.

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	badness - that which is below standard or expectations as of ethics or decency; "take the bad with the good" bad quality - an essential and distinguishing attribute of something or someone; "the quality of mercy is not strained"--Shakespeare unworthiness - the quality or state of lacking merit or value undesirability - the quality possessed by something that should be avoided worse - something inferior in quality or condition or effect; "for better or for worse"; "accused of cheating and lying and worse" evil - that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; "the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones"- Shakespeare unsoundness - not mentally or physically healthy; "no one can be a poet without a certain unsoundness of mind" liability - the quality of being something that holds you back inadvisability - the quality of being ill-advised goodness, good - that which is pleasing or valuable or useful; "weigh the good against the bad"; "among the highest goods of all are happiness and self-realization"
	2.	badness - used of the degree of something undesirable e.g. pain or weather severeness, severity intensiveness, intensity - high level or degree; the property of being intense raininess, foulness - (of weather) the badness of the weather; "they were wearied with the foulness of the weather" distressfulness, seriousness - the quality of arousing fear or distress; "he learned the seriousness of his illness"
	3.	badness - an attribute of mischievous children mischievousness, naughtiness disobedience - the trait of being unwilling to obey prankishness, rascality, roguishness - the trait of indulging in disreputable pranks

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badness

noun wickedness, wrong, evil, corruption, sin, impropriety, immorality, villainy, naughtiness, sinfulness, foulness, baseness, rottenness, vileness, shamefulness << OPPOSITE virtue