bad company
3
3.7
- noun
:
mala compañía
- She thinks Meg fell into bad company.
- fell into bad company
- keep bad company
Examples
-
You was right about me gambling and the bad company I was keeping.
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They said that their son had fallen into bad company and had thus started on his career of robbery.
Fiction book (2000) -
- It's not like you to keep bad company, George.
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That guy is bad company.
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In town an hour and already you're keeping bad company.
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Temptation comes to all of us, and bad company does not help.
Blog text (19) -
Bad company corrupts good character.
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He got into bad company, that's all.
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Child, like my Aunt Yorima used to say, it's better to be alone with yourself for the rest of your life than to be together with bad company for a minute.
-
It's not like you to keep bad company, George.
Synonyms
9
5.1
People who make someone behave badly or get in trouble
Antonyms
How Harmful
- NSFW
72
3.4
832
2.8
- Informal
9
5.1
3
3.7
9
3.2
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly built from 'bad' (negative/harmful) + 'company' (people one spends time with), so a learner who knows both words can readily infer that it refers to people who have a harmful influence. This construction is cross-linguistically common and follows straightforward adjectival modification, making it immediately comprehensible at B1 level.
Etymology
The phrase bad company comes from old advice about bad people and company, meaning the people you spend time with. Picture someone with friends who lead them into trouble, so bad company means people who have a 'bad influence'.