In a Latin class today, we talked about the word for bad, malus.
From malus, English gets all kinds of bad words. No. Not that kind of bad words.
The following English words trace their origins back to malus:
- Malice – the desire to do evil
- Malicious – intending to do har,
- Malign – to slander.
- Malefactor – a person who commits a crime or does something wrong.
- Maleficent – an evil-doer. Also, the bad girl in the Sleeping Beauty stories. Aurora is the Latin word for Dawn.
- Malnutrition – poor or inadequate nutrition.
- Malfunction – failure to function properly.
- Malpractice – unethical conduct, especially by a professional.
- Malcontent – a person who is dissatisfied or rebellious.
- Malediction – a curse; the utterance of a curse, and
- Draco Malfoy – the head bad guy among the students at Hogwarts.
These words all share the general idea of something bad or harmful.
Incidentally, learning Latin to get insiders knowledge on the English language is not a bad idea. Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
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