How to Use villainy in a Sentence

villainy

noun
  • But does one heroic moment make up for a season full of villainy?
    — Sydney Bucksbaum, EW.com, 11 July 2019
  • The bounty hunter is there, there’s a general hive of scum and villainy vibe.
    — Angela Watercutter, Wired, 20 Feb. 2020
  • As a scoundrel, players decide on their own code among a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
    — Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 5 Sep. 2024
  • Does justice prevail, or the dull villainy of the world triumph?
    — Time Staff, Time, 22 May 2017
  • The inevitable charisma of villainy makes the accusers vivid as well.
    — Rivka Galchen, The New Yorker, 15 Jan. 2024
  • The inevitable charisma of villainy makes the accusers vivid as well.
    — The New Yorker, 12 June 2024
  • The acts of villainy aren't what are unsettling about this novel.
    — Star Tribune, 8 Oct. 2020
  • But the writing for her descent into madness and villainy has been on the wall.
    — Chris Smith, BGR, 10 Mar. 2022
  • Hutt gangsters, bounty hunters, wretched hives of scum and/or villainy, and so on.
    — Adam Rogers, WIRED, 8 Mar. 2018
  • The Rock did give full respect to Elba for his full-on villainy.
    — Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY, 29 July 2019
  • Look, henchwomen are still important archetypes in the world of villainy.
    — Samantha Riedel, Them., 28 Mar. 2025
  • Hamm is absurdly handsome as always, and meant to embody the villainy of the state.
    — Rumaan Alam, The New Republic, 20 Dec. 2019
  • Cosby’s good guys do things that outpace the rankest villainy in the work of other crime writers.
    — Emma Alpern, Vulture, 2 Dec. 2025
  • Drama became melodrama as the winds blared out villainy and the puppets fought.
    — Mark Swed, latimes.com, 26 Jan. 2018
  • Many big-budget games need a renewable source of villainy, and hell or a hell-analogue is an easy answer for that.
    — Joshua Rivera, Wired, 22 Dec. 2020
  • July promises to be a great month for Uma Thurman fans, as well as one filled with villainy.
    — Michileen Martin, MSNBC Newsweek, 8 May 2025
  • The villainy isn’t coordinated, but more like a feedback loop of evil.
    — Amy Nicholson, Los Angeles Times, 30 Apr. 2026
  • Even many of the ex-President’s opponents haven’t grasped the scale of the man’s villainy.
    — Hannah Jocelyn, The New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2024
  • Some of these are now in orbit around Earth, and perhaps bring James Bond villainy to mind.
    — Tom Rogan, Washington Examiner, 3 Dec. 2020
  • The picture of chilling villainy, Reehl is pompous and power-hungry.
    — Amanda Rooker, Orange County Register, 3 May 2017
  • In King’s book, the hotel is evil; in Kubrick’s film, there’s plenty of human villainy to go around.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 13 Apr. 2026
  • In King’s book, the hotel is evil; in Kubrick’s film, there’s plenty of human villainy to go around.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 14 Apr. 2026
  • We are left with a portrait of villainy that feels, like the customer service number for an app, extremely hard to pin down.
    — Marisha Pessl, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2017
  • Star Wars Outlaws Welcome to a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
    — Richard Newby, TIME, 5 Dec. 2024
  • So many movies depict tech bringing out the worst in people, leaving us with the sort of cop-out villainy of computers are bad!
    — Jordan Crucchiola, Vulture, 12 Oct. 2024
  • Alcoves and stone stairwells added authenticity, the kind of place where scum and villainy — and tourists — would lurk about.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 13 Sep. 2019
  • Amid the villainy, Thompson and Cheney cited acts of heroism.
    — Mike Debonis, Washington Post, 10 June 2022
  • Fennell's Heathcliff, on the other hand, is stripped of the majority of his villainy.
    — Megan McCluskey, Time, 13 Feb. 2026
  • Sanders, who was an Uncle Vanya for our time, sinks his teeth into the thunderous villainy of Cotchipee.
    — Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times, 6 Oct. 2023
  • When that truth became clear, the modern power of book-burning was reinforced — as was the idea that to be the one burning the books was a sure sign of villainy.
    — Lily Rothman, Time, 18 May 2018

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

Last Updated: