evil: [OE] Evil has got distinctly worse over the millennia. Originally it seems to have signified nothing more sinister than ‘uppity’, and in the Old and Middle English period it meant simply ‘bad’; it is only in modern English that its connotations of ‘extreme moral wickedness’ came to the fore. It probably comes ultimately from *upelo- a derivative of the Indo-European base *upo- ‘under’ (source of Greek hupó ‘under’, Sanskrit upa ‘at, to’, and English up and over), and so its underlying connotation is of ‘exceeding due limits, extremism’.
Its Germanic descendant was *ubilaz, source of German übel ‘evil’ as well as English evil. => over, up
evil (adj.)
Old English yfel (Kentish evel) "bad, vicious, ill, wicked," from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (cognates: Old Saxon ubil, Old Frisian and Middle Dutch evel, Dutch euvel, Old High German ubil, German übel, Gothic ubils), from PIE *upelo-, from root *wap- "bad, evil" (cognates: Hittite huwapp- "evil").
In Old English and other older Germanic languages other than Scandinavian, "this word is the most comprehensive adjectival expression of disapproval, dislike or disparagement" [OED]. Evil was the word the Anglo-Saxons used where we would use bad, cruel, unskillful, defective (adj.), or harm (n.), crime, misfortune, disease (n.). In Middle English, bad took the wider range of senses and evil began to focus on moral badness. Both words have good as their opposite. Evil-favored (1520s) meant "ugly." Evilchild is attested as an English surname from 13c.
The adverb is Old English yfele, originally of words or speech. Also as a noun in Old English, "what is bad; sin, wickedness; anything that causes injury, morally or physically." Especially of a malady or disease from c. 1200. The meaning "extreme moral wickedness" was one of the senses of the Old English noun, but it did not become established as the main sense of the modern word until 18c. As a noun, Middle English also had evilty. Related: Evilly. Evil eye (Latin oculus malus) was Old English eage yfel. The jocular notion of an evil twin as an excuse for regrettable deeds is by 1986, American English, from an old motif in mythology.
evil (n.)
Old English yfel (see evil (adj.)).
实用例句
1. When we go out, girls are always giving me the evil eye.
我们出去时，女孩子们总是用忌妒的眼神看着我。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Two and a half years ago I gave up the evil weed.
两年半以前我改邪归正，不抽大麻了。
来自柯林斯例句
3. With knowledge and wisdom, evil could be vanquished on this earth.
拥有了知识和智慧就能够把恶势力从这个世界上铲除。
来自柯林斯例句
4. After 1760 few Americans refrained from condemning slavery as evil.
1760年后，很多美国人都在谴责奴隶制的社会危害。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The perpetrators of this evil deed must be brought to justice.
