badness

plural badnesses

1. countableuncountableThe quality or degree of being bad.

   The badness of a dignitary harm derives from the victim's belief that a perpetrator is willing to override or ignore her standing as a person with rights, with dignity, as evidenced by the wrongful criminal deed; […]

   2015, J. M. Bernstein, Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury, page 140

   1 more example

   It is easy to assess whether a sentence is acceptable or not: This is just how “good” or “natural” the sentence sounds to a group of fluent speakers of a language. The assessment that the badness is likely due to the grammar is a more complex inference.

   2025, Edward A. F. Gibson, “Preliminaries: Components of Language Structure” (chapter 2), in Syntax: A Cognitive Approach, MIT Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 25

   Synonyms: bad manners, delinquency, devilishness, devilment, devilry, deviltry, disobedience, elfishness