What's the difference between evil and nefarious?

Evil


Definition:

  • (a.) Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous; not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil beast; and evil plant; an evil crop.
  • (a.) Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt; wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart, words, and the like.
  • (a.) Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil arrows; evil days.
  • (n.) Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; -- opposed to good.
  • (n.) Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence; wickedness; depravity.
  • (n.) malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil, the scrofula.
  • (adv.) In an evil manner; not well; ill; badly; unhappily; injuriously; unkindly.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) King Salman of Saudi Arabia urged the redoubling of efforts to “eradicate this dangerous scourge and rid the world of its evils”.
  • (2) More evil than Clocky , the alarm clock that rolls away when you reach out to silence it, or the Puzzle Alarm , which makes you complete a simple puzzle before it'll go quiet, the Money Shredding Alarm Clock methodically destroys your cash unless you rouse yourself.
  • (3) To confront this evil – and defeat it, standing together for our values, for our security, for our prosperity.” Merkel gave a strong endorsement of Cameron’s reform strategy, saying that Britain’s demands were “not just understandable, but worthy of support”.
  • (4) "Our black, Muslim and Jewish citizens will sleep much less easily now the BBC has legitimised the BNP by treating its racist poison as the views of just another mainstream political party when it is so uniquely evil and dangerous."
  • (5) Richard now is presented, albeit somewhat inconsistently, as evil in response to social ostracism because of his ugly deformities.
  • (6) One view of these results stems from the belief that contraception is a necessary evil and the pill is the closest to a 'natural' sex act.
  • (7) Answer, citing Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This is a very British suicide.
  • (8) So that you know he's evil, he is dressed like a giant, bedraggled grey duckling, in a fur coat made up of bits of chewed-up wolf.
  • (9) How World of Warcraft train future soldiers One odder digression sees the two discussing whether or not MMORPGs, video games like World of Warcraft, are evil.
  • (10) The deputy prime minister branded the treatment meted out to the four-year-old by his mother, Magdelena Luczak, and stepfather, Mariusz Krezolek, as evil and vile, but suggested it was up to the whole of society to stop such tragedies.
  • (11) We make mistakes, and fall victim to the temptations of pride, and power, and sometimes evil.
  • (12) Questioned as to whether Google needs to alter its mission statement, which was twinned with the company mantra “don’t be evil, for the next stage of company growth in an interview with the Financial Times , Page responded: “We’re in a bit of uncharted territory.
  • (13) "I have been an evil witch, but now I can set light to the house and die happy."
  • (14) But at some point I realized that it's precisely because they continuously justify so much violence and aggression from their side that they have such a boundless compulsion to depict others as the Uniquely Primitive and Violent Evil.
  • (15) For here we see the depravity to which man can sink, the barbarity that unfolds when we begin to see our fellow human beings as somehow less than us, less worthy of dignity and life; we see how evil can, for a moment in time, triumph when good people do nothing."
  • (16) The US said it had removed North Korea – once a member of George Bush's axis of evil – from the terror list to breathe life into the stalled nuclear negotiations and would continue to pressure Pyongyang to resolve the abduction issue.
  • (17) As he described, with something approaching relish, the horrifying effect of a desperate eurozone willing to destroy the British economy, our industry and our society, purely to protect itself, I was reminded of the epic Last Judgement by John Martin, now in the Tate, which depicts the terrifying chaos as the good are separated from the evil damned.
  • (18) Channel One also branded Berezovsky an "evil genius," and a report on his demise quoted a senior member of the ruling United Russia , Vyacheslav Nikonov, saying he found it hard to believe the news was true.
  • (19) In recent months there have been series of protests against the intensifying campaign, with one Catholic leader denouncing the cross removals as an “evil act” .
  • (20) Time and again they said to me: ‘I knew I shouldn’t, but I had to weigh it up against what was happening, and it was the lesser of two evils.’ Years later many of these women are still ashamed of themselves.

Nefarious


Definition:

  • (adv.) Wicked in the extreme; abominable; iniquitous; atrociously villainous; execrable; detestably vile.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The author of the new bill, Mike Rogers, the Republican chair of the House intelligence committee , has said it is aimed at tracking the nefarious activities of hackers, terrorists and foreign states, especially China.
  • (2) But remember: record companies can be callous and nefarious beasts."
  • (3) "If there is evidence that a particular American is involved in terrorism or other nefarious activity, then intelligence and law enforcement agencies should absolutely investigate that person aggressively, by showing that evidence to a judge and getting a warrant.
  • (4) For decades she’s been portrayed as a Lady Macbeth involved in nefarious plots, branded as “a congenital liar” and accused of covering up her husband’s misconduct, from Arkansas to Monica Lewinsky.
  • (5) In the fevered Daily Mail version, this fact suggests a nefarious and hyperactive court, up to mischief and rejoicing in 'overruling' national authorities, better to promote the interests of sex offenders and the homicidal.
  • (6) The talks came as the RAF dropped "precision" weapons on the Central Organisation for Electronic Research, described by the Ministry of Defence as "a cover for the regime's nefarious activities".
  • (7) Muscular dysfunction has a nefarious effect on subsequent facial growth.
  • (8) Thor: The Dark World sees Chris Hemsworth's Asgardian prince forced to team up with Tom Hiddleston's crafty Loki to take down an even greater threat, Christopher Eccleston's nefarious Malekith.
  • (9) A few minutes’ walks away, are the Catacumbas del Beaterio , part of a network of tunnels used for nefarious and religious purposes: short tours began last year.
  • (10) The optional measure was designed to “provide DHS greater clarity and visibility to possible nefarious activity and connections by providing an additional tool set which analysts and investigators may use”.
  • (11) Pushkov claimed Moscow and the EU were looking to solve the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine but were being stymied by Washington's nefarious plans.
  • (12) Meanwhile, Donald Trump appeared to accuse Obama of harbouring a nefarious secret agenda on national security, linking the president to the mass shooting.
  • (13) Look, he’s the clear frontrunner, he’s been in six debates already, answered more questions from the media than any other candidate on the stage combined.” The Fox News press release that irked Trump and led to his withdrawal read: “We learned from a secret back channel that the Ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president – a nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the Cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.” Trump derided it as “a wise guy press release .
  • (14) Until recently Bitcoin had been a largely obscure currency used by the tech-savvy , libertarians wishing to thumb their noses at central bankers and people involved in more nefarious activities such as online gambling (often illegal in the US) or drug deals .
  • (15) Time was one would head to that area whenever a nefarious local had gone missing because, in time, the body would wash up in the River Lee.
  • (16) It also warned that “the conviction and detention of an individual for being in a declared area where no evidence has been provided of a nefarious intent could be arbitrary for the purposes of international human rights law”.
  • (17) Naturally, such features can be used for nefarious ends too, but Taaki says that's the price to be paid for freedom.
  • (18) While I’m not interested in a specific individual, I’m interested in the emergent behaviour of the crowd.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest City-simulation company Simudyne creates computerised models ‘with pretty pictures’ to aid disaster-response planning But what about more nefarious bodies who are interested in specific individuals?
  • (19) Via nefarious means I've watched two episodes of Lilyhammer , BBC4's brand new "not very good thing with subtitles we're hoping to keep The Killing audience enraptured with", where a New York mob boss (Steven Van Zandt) goes into hiding in Norway with hilarious results.
  • (20) We all know about the military uses of drones (bomb lots of people, surveillance), and how drones can be used for nefarious purposes (theft, voyeurism), but there are actually some pretty cool uses for drones too.