bad guy
nounDefinition of bad guy
informal
1
: the villain in a story : baddie
played the bad guy in the movie
2
: someone who is likened to the villain in a story: such as
a
: a criminal
Designed to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys and children … — Popular Science
b
: a military enemy
… a decision that owes more to parochial conflicts within the Armed Forces than to doing the best job of surveilling bad guys.— Stuart F. Brown
c
: someone who deserves to be blamed or criticized for causing a bad situation
Meanwhile, it's the environmentalists who are now portrayed as the bad guys, hiring lots of lawyers, consorting with congressmen …— Eric Alterman
d
: a person who treats other people harshly or strictly : a person who says or does unpopular things
Parenting isn't just about having beautiful kids and being busy. It's about dealing with problems, and your success as a parent depends on your willingness to be the bad guy. If you aren't willing to be the bad guy, you shouldn't be a parent.— Roy Bragg
Examples of bad guy in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
There’s a protagonist, an antagonist, a good guy and a bad guy. — Yvonne Villarrealstaff Writer, Los Angeles Times, "‘Carnival Row’ is not the next ‘Game of Thrones.’ Its showrunner wouldn’t have it any other way," 23 Aug. 2019 One common trope in these titles is to include the name of a bad guy and/or organization in the movie itself. — Travis M. Andrews, Washington Post, "The definitive ranking of James Bond movie titles," 20 Aug. 2019 But is there really a difference between a bad guy and a bad personality? — Michelle Ruiz, Vogue, "From Fleabag to Stranger Things, It’s the Summer of Brett Gelman," 29 July 2019 Essentially: The superheroes in The Boys are the bad guys, and only a rag-tag international task force called the Boys can take them down. — Elena Nicolaou, refinery29.com, "Meet The Cast Of Amazon's Wild New Superhero Show, The Boys," 25 July 2019 The show went to a virtual matrix universe where everyone was a bad guy, and the Big Bad was a magic robot lady. — Adam Rogers, WIRED, "So Long, You Weird, Space-Time-Defying Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," 19 July 2019 There are heroes and bad guys, cool jerks and funny nerds. — Caroline Framke, chicagotribune.com, "‘Stranger Things’ finally does right by female characters with Maya Hawke’s Robin," 6 July 2019 Your co-worker, however, lied to the court at the time of the incident and now casts you as the bad guy. — Anchorage Daily News, "When a bad surprise call ends up in a breach of confidentiality and threats in the workplace," 30 July 2019 There are these complicated emotions around record labels right now -- we're often made out to be the bad guys. — Harley Brown, Billboard, "Merge Turns 30: Co-Founder Laura Ballance on Perils of Running an Indie Today," 19 July 2019These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'bad guy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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