bad guy
415
3.0
- noun
- /bæd ɡaɪ/
- Informal
:
villano
- Did you ever think that maybe you were the bad guy, Snake?
- good and bad guys
- bad guys win
- just another bad guy
You're not going to sympathize with the bad guys, are you?
- You're not going to sympathize with the bad guys, are you?
- Hugo Chavez was a very bad guy, as is his successor.
- Occasionally some of the good guys and bad guys would switch sides.
- So we knew bad guys were in the area.
- Is that a bad guy or is that a good guy?
- And then I call the bad guys the gang members.
- And you know, if people think I'm a bad guy over that, that's for them.
- You got to think like a bad guy to defeat the bad guy.
- They have to be constantly looking for the bad guy like this, right?
- But you know, it's not hard for human bad guys to disable the dog.
- OK, am I defending these bad guys or who are alleged bad guys?
- But you look at that war, obviously Saddam, bad guy, like not good guy.
- So chimpanzees were like the bad guys and bonobos were the good guys.
- So US complicity, who are the bad guys now?
Examples
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Did you get the bad guys?
-
We're the bad guys and they're the good guys.
-
Remember from your film, who was the bad guy in the film?
-
So we knew bad guys were in the area.
-
Is that a bad guy or is that a good guy?
-
We're all scared that a bad guy could grab it.
-
Am I the bad guy here?
-
Come on, we got to get up and catch bad guys today.
-
And then I call the bad guys the gang members.
-
In the movie, the hero had to confront the bad guy to save the city.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
A person who wants to harm or defeat you
272
3.3
A person who does very bad things, often the main bad character in a story
152
6.1
A person, team or group that is against you
128
3.5
A person or group that fights against you in a conflict
104
1.6
A person who harms others on purpose or does wrong things
45
8.1
A powerful enemy or thing that causes someone's defeat
19
6.3
A person who opposes another person, often in a story or argument
15
7.5
A person who does bad things to hurt other people
8
3.8
A bad character in a story who causes trouble for the hero, often in children's stories
5
7.8
A person's main enemy who often opposes them
2
7.0
A person who is the main bad character in a story or film, often in children's stories
2
7.1
A woman who plays the bad person in a story
1
8.0
The main enemy in a story who is very powerful and evil
1
7.7
A man who does cruel or wrong things in stories
1
9.2
A very powerful evil enemy in stories or legends
A powerful character who opposes the hero and creates major conflict
The main enemy at the end of a story who the heroes must defeat
Antonyms
How Villainous
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is a straightforward adjective + noun composition: 'bad' (morally wrong/harmful) modifies 'guy' (person), so a learner who knows both words can infer it means a person who is bad or an antagonist. This is a common, compositional pattern across languages and follows normal adjective–noun semantics, making the meaning immediately accessible to B1 learners.
Etymology
Bad guy comes from old stories and plays where one person clearly acts like the villain — the bad guy who causes trouble and who the audience can point to. So, the phrase now means 'a person who is against you' or the 'villain' in a situation.