Meaning of bad in English

badThe food wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.
poorTheir efforts produced extremely poor results.
low/poor/bad qualityTheir sausages are made with low-quality meat.
mediocreThe receiver has been benched after a mediocre performance on the field.
inferiorThe copies are of inferior quality.

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Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

bad at something

bad atI was overweight and bad at sports.
hopelessI’m completely hopeless in the kitchen.
uselessUK He’s useless at maths.
rubbishUK She’s a pretty rubbish singer, really.
incompetentThe rules have made it hard to remove incompetent teachers.

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More examplesFewer examples

The food was bad.
Don't be afraid to complain if the service is bad.
I won't fly with an airline that has a bad safety record.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Not of good quality

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bad adjective (UNSUCCESSFUL)

not successful, or not able to do something well:

Business has been bad this year.

I'm very bad at cooking.

Everyone thinks I'm a bad driver.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

not producing a desired result

unsuccessfulOur attempts to change the law were unsuccessful.
failedThe company went bankrupt pouring money into yet another failed product.
badSales have been really bad this quarter.
fruitlessAll our pleas that she stay in school were fruitless - she left anyway.
unfruitfulThe negotiations were unfruitful.

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The team were really bad today - they deserved to lose.
Every organization has some bad managers.
The company's financial situation is pretty bad at the moment.
She's just a bad loser.

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Unsuccessful (people and things)

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bad adjective (SEVERE)

severe or serious:

The damage caused by the storm was nowhere near as/nothing like as bad as we'd feared it might be.

The lines were so bad that I didn't bother waiting.

a bad cough

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I had the worst flu I'd ever experienced.
It was quite a bad accident.
The unrest shows just how bad the situation has gotten.

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Serious and unpleasant

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bad adjective (UNHEALTHY)

damaging to health:

Breathing in other people's cigarette smoke is bad for you.

They have a bad diet.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Dangerous and harmful

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Passing on illness & causing disease

bad adjective (EVIL)

B1 worse | worst

(of people or actions) evil or morally unacceptable:

There are a lot of bad people in the world.

He has his faults but he's not a bad person.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

a bad person, action, etc.

badA very bad man is getting what he deserves.
evilHe was an evil dictator who murdered his own people.
wickedRapunzel was trapped inside a tower by a wicked witch.
awfulShe was truly awful to him through their entire marriage.
terribleHe was a terrible husband.

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He's been keeping bad company.
He's not a bad guy, just a misguided one.
She was in with a bad lot.
I've done some bad things in my time.

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Morally wrong and evil

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bad adjective (UNSUITABLE)

not suitable or not convenient:

This is a bad time for me to talk. Can I call you back later?

She arrived at the worst possible moment.

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He announced his resignation at a really bad time for the project.
It was probably a bad thing to say at that particular moment.

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Unsuitable and unacceptable

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bad adjective (PAINFUL)

C1 worse | worst

causing or experiencing pain:

She can't walk up all those steps, not with her bad leg!

I've got a bad head this morning.

Thesaurus: synonyms, antonyms, and examples

painful

painfulHer ankle was still painful if she put weight on it.
soreMy feet are sore from walking around all day.
tenderThe glands in my neck feel really tender.
sensitiveMy face was bright red and sensitive to the touch.
excruciatingHis injury caused excruciating headaches.

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SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Pain & painful

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bad adjective (DECAYED)

harmful to eat because of being decayed:

We'd better eat this chicken before it goes bad.

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Not pleasant to eat or drink

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Related word

badness

Grammar

Good at, bad at

We use adjective + at to talk about things that we do well or badly: …

Idioms

be in a bad way
feel bad
give something up as a bad job
go from bad to worse
not bad
not (too) bad

bad

adverb

/bæd/ uk

/bæd/

informal for badly (= very much):

He needs the money real bad.

My arm hurts so bad.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Linguistics: very & extreme

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Idiom

have (got) it bad

bad

noun [ U ]

/bæd/ uk

/bæd/

things or events that are not good or that are morally wrong:

She only ever sees the bad in people.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Morally wrong and evil

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Bad and wrong behavior

Idioms

go to the bad
my bad
take the bad with the good
to the bad

(Definition of bad from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

bad | Intermediate English

bad

adjective

/bæd/

comparative worse us/wɜrs/ | superlative worst us/wɜrst/

bad adjective (UNPLEASANT)

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not good; disappointing or unpleasant, or causing difficulties or harm:

We heard the bad news about Dorothy’s illness.

Flights were delayed because of bad weather.

Too much salt is bad for you (= has a harmful effect on your health).

Bad can also mean serious or severe:

a bad accident/storm

bad adjective (LOW QUALITY)

of very low quality; not acceptable:

bad manners

We thought the hotel was bad and the food was terrible.

That was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.

bad adjective (EVIL)

(of people or actions) evil or morally unacceptable:

He’s not a bad person.

bad adjective (UNHEALTHY)

(of a person) ill or not well, or (of an illness) serious or severe:

a bad back/heart

a bad cough

bad health

He’s in really bad shape.

He’s got bad arthritis and can hardly walk.

Idiom

not (too) bad

(Definition of bad from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

bad | Business English

bad

noun

FINANCE

/bæd/ us

to the bad

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if you are a particular amount of money to the bad, you have lost or owe that amount:

The bank has a positive deficiency of €376,900 with a possibility of its being over half a million to the bad.

(Definition of bad from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of bad

bad

He was a very old man shrinking from the night, from this terrible night, the worst night of his life.

From NPR

That's either the candidates or the campaigns wanting to deflect on bad performances or whatever.

From Huffington Post

Private prisons have been exposed for their poor performance, dangerous conditions and bad investments for taxpayers.

From OCRegister

Still, if the problems with welfare reform span the country, some states are nevertheless making it worse than others.

From The Atlantic

We complain about a lot of stuff, but she went through a lot worse.

From Chicago Tribune

And a large percentage of them are content to have their capital essentially do nothing -- or worse than nothing.

From Slate Magazine

Is there anything worse than having a flimsy, lightweight keyboard sliding all over your desk while you type?

From Gizmodo

I don't see this as the worst week in my campaign.

From CNN

Evidently, it is worse for a team to finish in last place than it is to not have its games on television.

From Los Angeles Times

He told them he was just saying prayers and preparing for the worst.

From NPR

Their experiences in their native countries were bad enough, and the journey over was very traumatic.

From ThinkProgress

It gets worse for those with quiet voices.

From CNET

He called it possibly the worst possible playing surface for baseball, but they made it work.

From ABC News

These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

What is the pronunciation of bad?

A1,A2,B1,C1,B2