How to Use malevolent in a Sentence

malevolent

adjective
  • That, at any rate, is how the more malevolent critics of Herodotus would put it.
    Tom Holland, WSJ, 30 Mar. 2017
  • Why are all the adults in the story—save, perhaps, one or two—malevolent?
    Willing Davidson, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2020
  • This was a man who viewed his body as a swarming hive of malevolent bees.
    Denise Davidson Writer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 Aug. 2021
  • The hunt for a missing P.I. will lead Parker to the Brethren, a gang of malevolent spirits.
    David Martindale, star-telegram.com, 30 June 2017
  • For months, the team has seemed to be in the grip of an invisible, malevolent force.
    Dan Schlossberg, Forbes, 8 Sep. 2024
  • The Sith are the malevolent enemies of the do-gooding Jedi.
    John Leicester, Chicago Tribune, 28 Mar. 2023
  • But there is also a strange malevolent presence on board, sensed by the team's telepath.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 29 Nov. 2018
  • Ben goes, pretends to snap some shots, and declares the place free of malevolent spirits.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 26 July 2023
  • Our intelligence views them as the most aggressive and the malevolent force in the world.
    Fox News, 21 July 2018
  • Oh yeah, Russians are on the platform and have abused it, malevolent actors have abused it.
    Recode Staff, Recode, 2 May 2018
  • The main thing is that there's just something malevolent about parrots.
    John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 4 May 2017
  • All the same, Reagan’s views of a malevolent Kremlin were well-founded.
    The Economist, 15 Aug. 2019
  • And most don’t require a malevolent dictator to bring them to full fruition.
    IEEE Spectrum, 3 Jan. 2022
  • At the heart of the play are machinations and scheming, of both the benevolent and malevolent sort, designed to steer or derail the course of love.
    Don Aucoin, BostonGlobe.com, 28 July 2022
  • The crew of an interstellar ship battles a malevolent force in this sci-fi thriller.
    Los Angeles Times, 19 Nov. 2020
  • The Crown’s forces had approached on horseback and by sea, with muskets, swords, and malevolent intent.
    David Kamp, Vanities, 22 Sep. 2017
  • Gleeson’s Puck is a malevolent hobgoblin who serves as the royal jester to King Auberon of Faerie.
    Denise Petski, Deadline, 2 July 2024
  • Along the way are rowdy choir boys, a nosy Sacristan, a wistful shepherd boy, and a gallery of malevolent henchmen.
    David Patrick Stearns, Philly.com, 13 May 2018
  • The man behind the obsessive quest, Ahab, is the malevolent heart of this production.
    Paul Hodgins, Orange County Register, 29 Jan. 2017
  • Each of these ten stories pitted a hero against a malevolent one-eyed giant.
    Ferris Jabr, Harper's magazine, 10 Mar. 2019
  • As such a name may imply, Lilith’s influence on the world is brutal and malevolent.
    Boone Ashworth, WIRED, 8 Dec. 2022
  • As Dawn draws closer to the truth, something malevolent grips her and her family.
    Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter, 27 Sep. 2022
  • But in Season 2, Horse is more like a malevolent trickster god, or a portal to the underworld.
    Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 23 Apr. 2022
  • While not always malevolent, they’re noted pranksters, and a good deal of time is spent trying to keep them happy.
    Hanya Yanagihara Kyoko Hamada, New York Times, 10 May 2023
  • These malevolent mechatronics put the power down with a vengeance.
    Dan Neil, WSJ, 2 Mar. 2023
  • The experts assumed that this would soon change, and that they’d be mobilized in a hot war against malevolent fakers.
    Daniel Immerwahr, The New Yorker, 13 Nov. 2023
  • Pathogens do not rampage like malevolent armies on the march, causing damage in direct relation to the scale and pace of their spread.
    Time, 3 Feb. 2020
  • Will the malevolent energy that struck the Brookhants School poison the cast reenacting those old tragedies?
    Washington Post, 15 Oct. 2020
  • The slashing of Navigator funding comes on the heels of a raft of other malevolent actions aimed at the ACA.
    Michael Hiltzik, latimes.com, 10 July 2018
  • Tom Goodman-Hill’s performance as a deeply creepy and malevolent predator in that show was riveting.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 18 Sep. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'malevolent.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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