Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - evil

(evils) Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English. 1. Evil is a powerful force that some people believe to exist, and which causes wicked and bad things to happen. There’s always a conflict between good and evil in his plays. ? good N-UNCOUNT 2. Evil is used to refer to all the wicked and bad things that happen in the world. He could not, after all, stop all the evil in the world. N-UNCOUNT 3. If you refer to an evil, you mean a very unpleasant or harmful situation or activity. Higher taxes may be a necessary evil. ...a lecture on the evils of alcohol. N-COUNT 4. If you describe someone as evil, you mean that they are very wicked by nature and take pleasure in doing things that harm other people. ...the country’s most evil terrorists... She’s an evil woman. ADJ 5. If you describe something as evil, you mean that you think it causes a great deal of harm to people and is morally bad. After 1760 few Americans refrained from condemning slavery as evil... ADJ 6. If you describe something as evil, you mean that you think it is influenced by the devil. I think this is an evil spirit at work... ADJ 7. You can describe a very unpleasant smell as evil. Both men were smoking evil-smelling pipes. ADJ 8. If someone is putting off the evil day or the evil hour, they have to do something unpleasant and are trying to avoid doing it for as long as possible. You can simply go on putting off the evil day and eventually find yourself smoking as much as ever. PHRASE: usu v PHR 9. If you have two choices, but think that they are both bad, you can describe the one which is less bad as the lesser of two evils, or the lesser evil. People voted for him as the lesser of two evils... PHRASE