Etymology

mal-

Today it means: evil Full definition →

Old French mal- ← Latin male ← Proto-Italic *malos
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*(s)mel-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*(s)molos?
  3. Proto-Italic*malos
  4. Latinmalus
  5. Latinmale
  6. Old Frenchmal-
  7. English todaymal-

From Old French mal- from Latin male (“badly”), from malus (“bad”).

Words from the same roots

Latinmale all →

malocclusionmorphewmalversation

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.