bad person
104
1.6
- noun
- Offensive
:
mala persona
- Some bad people will go out of their way to hurt others for personal gain.
We don't want to see bad people prospering, right?
- We don't want to see bad people prospering, right?
- A good person, a bad person, a good act, a bad act.
- Like there there are bad people who do exist.
- But the second she's with me, well, bad people know that now we're vulnerable.
- Yeah, you feel like you're a bad person and and you're not bad.
- It's just bad people do bad things to kids all the time.
- You're not a bad person who needs to be destroyed.
- They'll tell you you're a bad person for not just accepting their apology.
- But in the cases of this is not a bad person, but they've made a bad decision.
- He's, he's not a totally bad person in this.
- So it's not just crooks, bad people that choose to cross the line.
Examples
-
He realized that he had been associating with bad people who encouraged his negative behavior.
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To protect your children, it's important to teach them how to identify bad people around them.
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It's just bad people do bad things to kids all the time.
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Does that make me a bad person?
-
"Some of them are very bad people who have done horrible things," he says.
Academic text (2002) -
And I know I'm a bad person.
-
You're saying I feel like a bad person for what I did.
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If you believe you're a bad person, you will do bad things.
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It's simply because she's quite a bad person in lots of ways.
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She's not a bad person, and whether she knows it or not, she needs you.
Fiction book (1992)
Synonyms
415
3.0
A person who goes against others or causes harm
272
3.3
A person who does very bad things, often the main bad character in a story
161
6.8
A person who commits a crime or other serious wrong
151
4.0
A person who does things seen as morally wrong, often by religion
71
7.7
A person who is dishonest or breaks the law
51
6.5
A person who behaves dishonestly and hurts others by lying or stealing
22
8.4
A person who does bad things or breaks the law
19
8.4
A person who takes advantage of others for their own benefit
16
4.4
A person in a group who causes trouble for others
15
7.5
A person who does bad things to hurt other people
8
4.3
A person who breaks the law or hurts other people
8
3.8
A bad character in a story who causes trouble for the hero, often in children's stories
3
7.7
A person who breaks a law or important rule
2
7.0
A person who is the main bad character in a story or film, often in children's stories
1
8.3
A person who causes trouble on purpose or acts dishonestly
1
9.9
A man who behaves in a rude or dishonest way
1
5.6
A person who other people do not respect because they behave badly
1
9.2
An insulting word for a person who is dishonest or behaves badly
1
7.7
A man who does cruel or wrong things in stories
1
8.6
A person who is more at fault than someone else
How Bad
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person who intentionally causes harm or behaves immorally' is directly and transparently built from 'bad' (morally wrong) modifying 'person' (a human), so the overall sense is predictable from the constituents. This adjective+noun composition is a common, cross-linguistic pattern and would be understood by a B1 learner who knows both words.
Etymology
Bad person comes from the simple image of a bad person who hurts others or does wrong things on purpose, so it means 'a person who causes harm to others'.