Sunday Word: Nefarious

[sallymn]

nefarious [ni-fair-ee-uhs]

adjective:
1 extremely wicked or villainous; iniquitous

Examples:

Remus Repeal Reserve was named after bootlegger George Remus, a man with a nefarious and sometimes problematic history who nevertheless was an important figure during Prohibition. (Jonah Flicker, One of the Best Bourbons on the Market Just Dropped Its Newest Edition, Robb Report, August 2024)

This time there are more nefarious thugs to run toward and away from. (Yvette Benavides, Review: Big trouble in the Big Easy in 'East of Texas, West of Hell', Houston Chronicle, December 2020)

I crept close, feeling unspeakably mean; I got my Turkish penny ready, and was extending a trembling hand to make the nefarious exchange, when I heard a cough behind me. (Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad)

Less figuratively speaking, he came up into the printing-office to expose from the book the nefarious plagiarism of an editor in a neighboring city, who had adapted with the change of names and a word or two here and there, whole passages from the essay on Barere, to the denunciation of a brother editor. (William Dean Howells, My Literary Passions)

She was to join him a week later, after he had had time to spy out the land and make his nefarious schemes for a mock marriage. (William J Locke, Jaffery)

Origin:

'wicked in the extreme,' c. 1600, from Latin nefarius 'wicked, abominable, impious,' from nefas 'crime, wrong, impiety,' from ne- 'not' (from PIE root ne- 'not') + fas 'right, lawful, divinely spoken,' related to fari 'to speak,' from PIE root bha- 'to speak, tell, say. (Online Etymology Dictionary)