How to Use villainess in a Sentence

villainess

noun
  • This role was way more of a straight character and a villainess.
    — Angie Martoccio, Rolling Stone, 28 Sep. 2023
  • The evil villainess looks up with her piercing green eyes, dons a pair of creepy horns on her head, and wears a killer pair of massive wings on her back.
    — Nicole Saunders, Harper's BAZAAR, 7 Mar. 2019
  • This classic villainess will get her very own origin story on Disney+ starting today.
    — Travis Bean, Forbes, 28 May 2021
  • Bryce Dallas Howard sucked the marrow from her turn as villainess, and the baby vampire army was a little cool.
    — Wired Staff, WIRED, 3 July 2014
  • Tati Gabrielle, fearsome) is a homicidal villainess who could give James Bond a run for his money.
    — Frank Scheck, The Hollywood Reporter, 14 Feb. 2022
  • Sci-fi villainess vibes, which is honestly a perfect fit for NYFW.
    — Carly Cardellino, Cosmopolitan, 7 Sep. 2017
  • There’s magic gone wrong and light-hearted tension and music and dancing and silliness and a villainess played by Maya Rudolph.
    — Scott D. Pierce, The Salt Lake Tribune, 11 Nov. 2022
  • Kate McKinnon purrfects the quirks, cringe, and nonsense of the Tiger King villainess.
    — Tomás Mier, Rolling Stone, 21 Jan. 2022
  • One of very few African-American cast members, she was famously portrayed as the trouble-maker, a soap opera villainess.
    — Rhonda Garelick, The Cut, 20 Dec. 2017
  • Actress Alison Sweeney, who has played the scheming soap villainess on and off for decades, is reprising her role on the long-running daytime drama.
    — Raechal Shewfelt, EW.com, 6 Aug. 2024
  • That was from Cruella, the new movie starring Emma Stone as a younger version of the classic Disney villainess.
    — Shannon Rae Green, USA TODAY, 28 May 2021
  • The more interesting characters are the lovesick Hong Bing and the villainess Shu Ja, who are at least more vivid and less predictable.
    — Deborah Young, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 June 2019
  • Disney darling Dove Cameron has been acting for 7 years, playing everything from a villainess to Cher Horowitz.
    — Carolyn Twersky, Seventeen, 27 Mar. 2019
  • Weaver will be in attendance for the inaugural night of screenings on February 2 to talk about her iconic corporate villainess.
    — April Wolfe, Los Angeles Magazine, 25 Jan. 2018
  • The first-class crew are divinely shady, with willowy Brooke Lynn Hytes making Amber a kind of drag Disney villainess.
    — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 1 June 2026
  • Mistress Mickle, actually Jenny Early, is an actress who now has a gig playing the villainess in a children’s game show.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Her version is superbly dramatized and, with its cast of spineless lovers and hymen-breaking villainesses, a very Iranian tale, every scene designed to stir up fury or longing.
    — Dina Nayeri, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Chopra, whose villainess seems bored by the whole situation, would rather be eviling it up in a James Bond movie, and the fireworks-laden climax is full of punch but leans predictable and lacks excitement.
    — Brian Truitt, USA TODAY, 23 May 2017
  • Ti West surprised audiences at the end of X with the promise of Pearl, a prequel exploring the bloody origin story of X’s villainess.
    — Richard Newby, The Hollywood Reporter, 21 Dec. 2022
  • The show isn’t necessarily doing anything wildly off book — there are at least three other series about being reincarnated as the villainess in a fantasy story and failing at it.
    — Kambole Campbell, Vulture, 9 Dec. 2025
  • Bob Odenkirk is reprising his role as mild-mannered family man who is secretly a former government assassin, while Sharon Stone is cast as the stone-cold villainess of the piece.
    — Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • In either case, here’s hoping that the show will finally acknowledge Bette’s true nature, allowing this wolf in Armani clothing to be the glamorous villainess she was always meant to be.
    — New York Times, 5 Dec. 2019
  • Britain, the new Cruella trailer teases the villainess' many confrontations with the Baroness as her plot combines a nefarious thirst for vengeance and her desire to dominate the fashion world.
    — Joey Nolfi, EW.com, 7 Apr. 2021
  • Gellar did pay tribute to her scheming villainess in 2022’s Do Revenge, in which her unnamed headmaster gives off major Kathryn vibes.
    — Reboots Apr. 4, Vulture, 4 Apr. 2023
  • While the villainess has the early upper hand, flooring Nicky with a backflip and astounding mid-air kick in the shoulder, Nicky strikes back, kicking Zhilan in the face and forcing the dagger out of her reach.
    — Max Gao, Vulture, 12 May 2021
  • Channeling her inner villainess, Kardashian went all-out for the Midori Green Halloween party in 2011.
    — Ariana Quihuiz, Peoplemag, 12 Oct. 2022
  • Konoha Satou’s dark fictional past becomes her reality when she’s reincarnated as Iana Magnolia, the villainess of her own adolescent fantasy.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 18 Sep. 2025
  • The dramatic conflict revolves around the plans of wealthy villainess Bitsy Brandenham (Stanley Tucci), who’s determined to turn the park into a home for condos and shopping centers.
    — Jeanne Jakle, ExpressNews.com, 4 June 2020
  • Gillespie also has a reputation for melding music to movies, as seen in Cruella, his 2021 movie that cast Disney villainess Cruella de Vil as a punk rock rebel in London’s fashion scene.
    — Borys Kit, HollywoodReporter, 3 July 2026
  • Queen of the South villainess Veronica Falcon agreed bad guys in film and TV deserve better press, even if a villain is by definition evil, as opposed to better-natured Hollywood anti-heroes.
    — Etan Vlessing, HollywoodReporter, 30 Oct. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'villainess.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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