badness
1
2.5
- noun
- /ˈbædnəs/
- The teacher expressed concern about the children's badness during the class, noting their mischievous behavior.
- the bad girl
- described badness
Examples
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A second group of survey questions explored the adolescent girls' understanding of badness and their decisions to behave in bad ways.
Academic text (2003) -
Alternatively, badness is associated with going against social norms, harming others, or violating inner values.
Academic text (2003) -
But sometimes beautiful things grow bad by doing bad, and it takes some time for their badness to spoil their beauty.
Blog text (17) -
Moreover, their ideas about badness seemed to be the direct opposite of those regarding goodness.
Academic text (2003) -
Badness was also described as harming others.
Academic text (2003) -
For example, badness was defined as breaking rules or going against societal norms.
Academic text (2003) -
Similar to their responses regarding goodness, the adolescent girls' definitions of badness appeared to be split between external and internal standards and demands.
Academic text (2003) -
The present study examined adolescent girls' thoughts and feelings about the concepts of goodness and badness, as well as their choices to behave in these ways.
Academic text (2003) -
Moreover, in contrast to the altruism attributed to goodness, 37% of the adolescent girls in Group A and 21% of those in Group B described badness as harming others.
Academic text (2003) -
Thirty-three percent of the adolescent girls in Group A and 11% of the adolescent girls in Group B defined badness as going against one's conscience, morals, or beliefs.
Academic text (2003)
Synonyms
2
3.2
Behaviour that breaks rules and teases others, often by children
1
8.8
Behaviour that harms people or tricks them, sometimes as a prank
1
4.6
Playful actions that cause small harmless trouble for fun
1
7.6
Playful or wicked behavior that shows mischief
Antonyms
How Naughty
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Badness comes from the simple word bad plus the ending -ness, and when we use it about children it means 'naughtiness' or mischievous behaviour. So in that sense badness describes being naughty or causing trouble, not deep evil.