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Mal-   Listen
prefix
Mal-  pref.  A prefix in composition denoting ill, or evil, F. male, adv., fr. malus, bad, ill. In some words it has the form male-, as in malediction, malevolent. See Malice. Note: The form male- is chiefly used in cases where the e, either alone or with other letters, is pronounced as a separate syllable, as in malediction, malefactor, maleficent, etc. Where this is not the case, as in malfeasance or male-feasance, malformation or male-formation, etc., as also where the word to which it is prefixed commences with a vowel, as in maladministration, etc., the form mal is to be preferred, and is the one commonly employed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mal-" Quotes from Famous Books



... sir," De Whichehalse interrupted him; "but I was about (having heard your case) to mention what need be an obstacle, and, I fear, would prove a fatal one, even if satisfactory proof were afforded of a felony. The mal-feasance (if any) was laid in Somerset; but we, two humble servants of His Majesty, are in commission of his peace for the county of Devon only, and therefore ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... for the next occasion of sentiment, which was at the Hotel Dieu whither they went after returning from the battlefield. It took all the mal-address of which travellers are masters to secure admittance, and it was not till they had rung various wrong bells, and misunderstood many soft nun-voices speaking French through grated doors, and set divers sympathetic spectators doing ineffectual services, that they at last found the ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... they came to no more definite conclusion than that on their classification and according to their questionnaire, among 200,000 Sheffield workers "about one quarter" were "well equipped," "approaching three-quarters" were "inadequately equipped" and that "about one-fifteenth" were "mal-equipped." ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann

... Brahmana Kacha, the grandson of Angiras, who was virtuous, acquainted with the precepts of religion, and attentive to his duties, while residing in my abode, even for this act of slaughter—and for the mal-treatment of my daughter too, know, O Vrishaparvan, I shall leave thee and thy relatives! Indeed, O king, for this, I can no longer stay with thee! Dost thou, O Asura chief, think that I am a raving liar? Thou makest light ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)

... given out the first line, and having observed some members of the family from the castle struggling to get through the crowd on a sacramental occasion, cried out, "Let the noble family of Eglinton pass," and then added the line which followed the one he had just given out rather mal-apropos—"Nor stand in sinners' way." One peculiarity I remember, which was, closing the strain sometimes by an interval less than a semitone; instead of the half-note preceding the close or key-note, they used to take the quarter-note, the effect ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... efforts, to repair damages and regain strength. This matter is not to be decided by an appeal to unschooled nature. It is the same question as that of the deformed pelvis,—one of degree. The facts of mal-vitalization are as much to be attended to as those of mal-formation. If the woman with a twisted pelvis is to be considered an exempt, the woman with a defective organization should be recognized as belonging to the invalid corps. We shudder to hear what is alleged as to the prevalence of criminal ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... Paymaster General, may be considered as a channel of conveyance, through which money passes from the treasury to the army, and as he is subjected to the law military, the Minister of Finance needs no other authority over him and his officers, than the power of putting under arrest and suspending for mal-conduct in office. ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... Had I known you would have taken this road, I should certainly not have engaged in such a mal-apropos diversion. But it is over now, we are all going back. My bear ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai

... may subdue—but is it the pride of a British King to rule a depopulated, a desolated, and a discontented country? Will fire and sword restore content and confidence to the land? Will the slaughter of a hundred thousand of the people of Ireland reconcile the survivors to that system of mal-government which they have risen to oppose? Will the faction which has provoked this scene of slaughter, become more popular by the carnage ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous

... has been retained to act for another, yet he is also much more than an agent. He is an officer of the court, holding his commission in this State, from two of the members of this court, and subject to be disbarred by this court for what our statute calls "mal-conduct in his office." He is appointed to assist in the administration of justice, is required to take an oath of office, and is privileged from arrest while ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... the West, there was a great deal of bitter prejudice against the movement, and white troops threatened to desert, if the plan should be really carried out. Those who entered the service were stigmatized as 'nigger officers,' and negro soldiers were hooted at and mal-treated by white ones. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson

... on my supernatural indifference to the superlative degree in general, as if it meant nothing in grammar. I usually know well that 'boots' may be called for in this world of ours, just as you called for yours; and that to bring 'Bootes,' were the vilest of mal-a-pro-pos-ities. Also, I should have understood 'boots' where you wrote it, in the letter in question; if it had not been for the relation of two things in it—and now I perfectly seem to see how I mistook that relation; ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... paix," La Noue, c. xix. Agrippa d'Aubigne, Hist. universelle, i. 260, and, following him, Browning, Hist. of the Huguenots, i. 220, and De Felice, Hist. of the Protestants of France, 190, say that this peace was wittily christened "La paix boiteuse et mal-assise;" but, as we shall see, this designation belongs to the peace of Saint Germain-en-Laye, in 1570, concluding the third ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... “Personal deformity from mal-conformation is uncommon, the only instance I remember being that of a young woman, whose utterance was unintelligibly nasal, in consequence of an imperfect development of the palatine bones leaving a gap in ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry

... objector may retort: "But if he thought it so fine a feat to steal, why did he inflict all those blows on the unfortunate who was caught?" My answer is: for the self-same reason which induces people, in other matters which are taught, to punish the mal-performance of a service. So they, the Lacedaemonians, visit penalties on the boy who is detected thieving as being but a sorry bungler in the art. So to steal as many cheeses as possible (off the shrine of Orthia (17)) was ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon



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