Meanings
- uncountableset phraseAbsolute evil; that has no sense of morality or mercy at all.
I can only say I was captivated by the film and its stealthy evocation of pure evil.
2022 May 26, Peter Bradshaw, “Pacifiction review – trouble in paradise, in apocalyptic Tahitian mystery”, in The GuardianAntonyms: pure good
- not comparableset phraseAbsolutely evil; having no sense of morality or mercy whatsoever.
This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.
1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 114Antonyms: pure good
Synonyms & antonyms
nounAbsolute evil; that has no sense of morality or mercy at all.
adjectiveAbsolutely evil; having no sense of morality or mercy whatsoever.
Origin
Has been rising in usage from other phrases using this sense of pure since around the 1950s. Has been rising exponentially as a set phrase since the 1990s.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
pure evil. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pure%20evil
“pure evil.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pure%20evil. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “pure evil,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/pure%20evil.
Source: pure evil on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.