villain

English

Examples (fiction)

Alternative forms

Etymology

Probably from Middle English vilein, from Old French vilein (modern French vilain), in turn from Late Latin vīllānus, meaning serf or peasant, someone who is bound to the soil of a Latin vīlla, which is to say, worked on the equivalent of a plantation in late Antiquity, in Italy or Gaul. Doublet of villein.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈvɪl.ən/
  • (dialectal) IPA(key): /ˈvɪl.jən/[1]
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪlən
  • Homophone: villein
  • Hyphenation: vil‧lain

Noun

villain (plural villains)

  1. (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) A vile, wicked person.
    1. An extremely depraved person, or one capable or guilty of great crimes.
    2. A deliberate scoundrel.
  2. (archaic, derogatory) A low-born, abject person.
    • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:
      Note the preſumption of this Scythian ſlaue:
      I tel thee villaine, thoſe that lead my horſe
      Haue to their names tytles of dignitie,
      And dar’ſt thou bluntly cal me Baiazeth?
  4. (fiction) A character who has the role of being bad, especially antagonizing the hero; an antagonist who is also evil or malevolent.
    Synonyms: antagonist; see also Thesaurus:villain
    • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
      Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.
    • 2012 July 18, Scott Tobias, “The Dark Knight Rises”, in AV Club‎[1]:
      As The Dark Knight Rises brings a close to Christopher Nolan’s staggeringly ambitious Batman trilogy, it’s worth remembering that director chose The Scarecrow as his first villain—not necessarily the most popular among the comic’s gallery of rogues, but the one who set the tone for entire series.
    • 2025 June 2, Adrian Horton, “Tech-bro satire Mountainhead is an insufferable disappointment”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      In some ways, it’s a relief to see tech bros, especially AI entrepreneurs, reach full, unambiguous movie-villain status.
  5. (poker) Any opponent player, especially a hypothetical player for example and didactic purposes. Compare: hero (“the current player”).
    Let's discuss how to play if you are the chip leader (that is, if you have more chips than all the villains).
  6. Archaic form of villein (“feudal tenant, peasant, serf”).

Synonyms

Derived terms

Descendants

  • → Korean: 빌런 (billeon)

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

villain (third-person singular simple present villains, present participle villaining, simple past and past participle villained)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To debase; to degrade [16th century].

References

  1. ^ Hall, Joseph Sargent (2 March 1942) “2. The Vowel Sounds of Unstressed and Partially Stressed Syllables”, in The Phonetics of Great Smoky Mountain Speech (American Speech: Reprints and Monographs; 4), New York: King's Crown Press, →DOI, →ISBN, § II.2, page 65.

Further reading

Anagrams

Finnish

Alternative forms

  • villojen

Noun

villain

  1. (dated) genitive plural of villa

Anagrams

Old French

Noun

villain oblique singular, m (oblique plural villainz, nominative singular villainz, nominative plural villain)

  1. alternative form of vilain
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