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Crossword clues for bad

bad
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
bad
I.adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a bad atmosphere
▪ There's a bad atmosphere among the staff.
a bad cold
▪ If you have a bad cold, just stay in bed.
a bad complexion (=with spots or marks on it)
a bad cough
▪ Jason’s at home with a bad cough.
a bad day (=in which things have happened in a way you do not want)
▪ I’ve had a really bad day !
a bad debt (=one that is unlikely to be paid back)
▪ Companies lose millions of pounds each year from having to write off bad debts.
a bad decision
▪ I think he made a bad decision.
a bad dream (=unpleasant or frightening)
▪ The movie gave the kids bad dreams.
a bad driver
▪ There are a lot of bad drivers on the roads.
a bad guy (=a person who is responsible for something bad that happens, or a person who you do not like)
▪ I'm fed up with people always thinking that I am the bad guy.
▪ Mike's not a bad guy.
a bad mood
▪ The news had put her in a bad mood.
a bad move
▪ It was a bad move letting him come here in the first place.
a bad name
▪ Most students feel that both boys and girls deserve a bad name if they sleep around.
a bad precedent
▪ Such a harsh punishment would set a bad precedent.
a bad reaction
▪ She had a bad reaction to the medicine.
a bad state (also a poor/sorry state)
▪ The report commented on the poor state of the roads.
a bad/negative image
▪ It’s difficult to explain why the industry has such a bad image.
▪ Many negative images of women are found in the media.
a bad/negative impression
▪ Arriving late for an interview gives a very negative impression.
a bad/negative influence
▪ He thought her friends were a bad influence.
a bad/ominous sign
▪ The jury was taking ages to make up its mind, which he felt was probably a bad sign.
a bad/poor investment
▪ The shares turned out to be a poor investment.
a bad/poor/disastrous start
▪ Things got off to a bad start when two people turned up late.
a bad/serious accident
▪ There’s been a bad accident on the freeway.
▪ The road is closed following a serious accident.
a bad/terrible joke (=not funny)
▪ Dad was known for his bad jokes.
a bad/terrible storm
▪ This was the worst storm for 50 years.
a bad/terrible/dreadful etc mistake
▪ It would be a terrible mistake to marry him.
a bad/terrible/nasty temper
▪ He ran back home in a terrible temper.
a bad/weak heart (=an unhealthy heart)
▪ The effort proved too much for her weak heart.
a big/bad defeat (also a heavy defeat British English) (= by a large amount)
▪ The polls were forecasting a heavy defeat for the President.
a good/bad child
▪ Be a good child and sit down!
a good/bad etc kisser
a good/bad experience
▪ On the whole, going to boarding school was a good experience for him.
▪ I've had some bad experiences when I've been travelling on my own.
a good/bad habit
▪ Eating healthy food as snacks is a good habit to get into.
a good/bad idea
▪ Keeping the drinks cold in the bath was a good idea.
▪ Knocking down this wall was a really bad idea.
a good/bad spell
▪ The team had some good spells during the match.
a good/bad/ill omen
▪ The mist seemed like a bad omen and Sara’s heart sank a little.
a run of good/bad luck (=a series of good or bad things)
▪ The team has had a run of bad luck lately, losing their last five games.
a serious/bad error
▪ The police made a serious error, which resulted in a young man’s death.
a situation worsens/deteriorates/gets worse
▪ Reports from the area suggest the situation has worsened.
assume the worst (=think that the worst possible thing had happened)
▪ When it got to midnight and Paul was still not back, I began to assume the worst.
bad advice
▪ Financial advisors can be fined if they give bad advice to a client.
bad breath (=that smells unpleasant)
▪ Smoking gives you bad breath.
bad cholesterol
bad debt
bad driving
▪ Bad driving can cause potentially fatal accidents.
bad guy
bad hair day
bad line
▪ I’m sorry, it’s a bad line and I can’t hear you.
bad luck
▪ His bad luck continued.
bad manners
▪ She apologized for her son’s bad manners.
bad news
▪ ‘I’m afraid I have bad news,’ said Jackson.
▪ Have you heard the terrible news about Simon?
bad planning
▪ ‘I’ve got no money left.’ ‘That was bad planning.’
bad points
▪ What would you say are Natalie’s bad points?
bad publicity (also adverse/negative publicityformal)
▪ Fatty foods have received much bad publicity in recent years.
▪ They don't want any more adverse publicity.
bad (=one that is making you cough or giving you pain)
▪ I'm not going running today - my chest is bad.
bad
▪ Working too hard was beginning to have a bad effect on my health.
bad
▪ If you get a bad grade, Mrs. Miller will help you until you can do better.
bad
▪ Later that evening, the pain was really bad.
bad (=wet or stormy)
▪ Several flights were cancelled owing to bad weather.
bad/nasty (=wide or deep and bleeding a lot)
▪ The cut looked quite bad.
▪ How did you get that nasty cut?
bad/naughty boy
▪ ‘You naughty boy!’ she said in a harsh voice.
bad/poor
▪ Moles have very poor eyesight.
bad/poor
▪ Poor hearing can affect your social relationships.
bad/poor
▪ The city doesn’t deserve its bad reputation.
bad/poor/terrible
▪ A student with a poor memory may struggle in school.
bad/poor/terrible/awful
▪ Why do doctors have such terrible handwriting?
bad/rotten
▪ She felt ashamed of her bad teeth and rarely smiled.
bad/serious/severe
▪ The mines have caused serious pollution of the river system.
▪ The pollution was so bad that most of the fish died.
bad/severe migraine
▪ He suffers from severe migraine.
bad/terrible
▪ The traffic was terrible this morning.
bad/terrible (=with many spots or marks)
▪ I had terrible skin when I was a teenager.
▪ My skin’s really bad at the moment.
bad/terrible/severe
▪ I’ve got a really bad headache.
bad/unpleasant/horrible etc
▪ The smell in the shed was awful.
be bigger/smaller/worse etc than you had imagined
▪ The job interview proved to be much worse than I had imagined it would be.
be good/bad for morale
▪ Well-deserved praise is always good for morale.
be good/bad for the environment
▪ Plastic bags are bad for the environment.
be good/bad for your health
▪ Eating plenty of vegetables is good for your health.
bring sb (good/bad) luck
▪ He always carried the stone in his pocket; he reckoned it brought him luck.
create a good/bad atmosphere
▪ Lighting is one of the most effective ways of creating a good atmosphere.
gave it up as a bad job (=stopped trying because success seemed unlikely)
▪ The ground was too hard to dig so I gave it up as a bad job.
get off to a good/bad etc start
▪ On your first day at work, you want to get off to a good start.
give sb/sth a bad name (=make someone or something have a bad reputation)
▪ A scandal like this could give the university a bad name.
go bad/sour etc
▪ The bread’s gone mouldy.
good going/not bad going
▪ We climbed the mountain in three hours, which wasn’t bad going.
good/bad circulation
▪ Doctors had to remove her leg because of bad circulation.
good/bad dancer
▪ Dave’s a good dancer.
good/bad etc at (doing) sth
▪ I’ve always been good at maths.
▪ Matt’s bad at handling people.
good/bad etc memories
▪ He left school with good memories of his time there.
good/bad etc posture
▪ Poor posture can lead to muscular problems.
good/bad etc vibes
▪ I have good vibes about this contract.
good/bad karma
▪ The house had a lot of bad karma.
good/bad loser (=someone who behaves well or badly after losing)
good/bad management
▪ good management and co-operation with staff
good/bad
▪ The boys were suspended from school for bad behaviour.
▪ His good behaviour did not last long.
good/bad
▪ a lazy student with a bad attitude
good/bad/poor sportsmanship (=good or bad behaviour in a sport)
▪ We try to teach the kids good sportsmanship.
good/bad/slow etc service
▪ The service was terrible and so was the food.
have a bad night (=not sleep well, especially when you are ill)
▪ I had a bad night last night.
have a good/bad etc reputation
▪ The law firm has an excellent reputation.
have a good/bad etc start
▪ We’ve had a disappointing start but we are hoping to improve.
have a good/bad/long etc day
▪ Simon looked as if he’d had a bad day at the office.
have good/bad etc hearing
▪ Dogs have excellent hearing.
have good/bad etc weather
▪ We have had lovely weather all week.
have good/bad luck
▪ I’ve had a bit of bad luck.
have good/bad manners
▪ All their children have such good manners.
have the (good/bad) luck to do sth
▪ He had the good luck to meet a man who could help him.
hit a snag/problems/a bad patch etc
▪ My father hit a bad patch, he had to sell the house.
in good/bad/terrible etc condition
▪ How do you keep your hair in such perfect condition?
it’s good/bad manners to do sth
▪ It’s bad manners to chew with your mouth open.
least worst
▪ Often it’s a question of choosing the least worst option.
longer/higher/worse etc than usual
▪ It is taking longer than usual for orders to reach our customers.
look good/bad etc
▪ The future’s looking good.
make a good/bad/early etc start
▪ He made a flying start at college, but then he didn't manage to keep it up.
make sth the best/worst/most expensive etc
▪ Over 80,000 people attended, making it the biggest sporting event in the area.
make things worse/easier/difficult
▪ Measures to slow down traffic on the main street have actually made things worse.
of the worst/best etc kind
▪ This is hypocrisy of the worst kind.
painted...in a bad light (=described him in a way that made him seem bad)
▪ The article painted him in a bad light.
perfect/good/bad etc timing
▪ He was just walking into the restaurant when we got there. Perfect timing.
poor/bad (=with few crops)
▪ A series of poor harvests plunged them into debt.
poor/bad (=not bright enough)
▪ The light was too poor for me to read.
prepared for the worst (=expected something very bad)
▪ There was no news and we were prepared for the worst.
put in/up a (good/bad etc) performance
▪ Liverpool put in a marvellous performance in the second half.
run of good/bad luck
▪ Losing my job was the start of a run of bad luck that year.
sb's eyesight gets worse/deteriorates
▪ Your eyesight gradually deteriorates with age.
sb's hearing gets worse (also sb's hearing deteriorates)
▪ The medication seemed to make her hearing get worse.
sb's worst nightmare (=the worst possible situation)
▪ The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease was farming's worst nightmare.
sb’s worst/greatest fear
▪ Her worst fear was never seeing her children again.
serious/severe/bad
▪ He was taken to Broomfield Hospital with serious head wounds.
significantly better/greater/worse etc
▪ Delia’s work has been significantly better this year.
smell bad/awful etc
▪ Cigarettes make your clothes smell awful.
take a turn for the worse/better
▪ Two days after the operation, Dad took a turn for the worse.
the bad guy (=a man in a book or movie who does bad things)
▪ The bad guys all have guns.
the bearer of bad news
▪ I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but ...
the best/worst kind
▪ Not knowing what had happened to her was the worst kind of torture.
the best/worst part
▪ The worst part was having to work even when it was raining.
the good news is …/the bad news is ... (=used to introduce a piece of good and bad news)
▪ The good news is that most stores have the game in stock; the bad news is that it's not cheap.
the pain gets worse
▪ If the pain gets any worse, see your doctor.
the very best/latest/worst etc
▪ We only use the very best ingredients.
the worst hit
▪ The south of the country is the worst hit by the recession.
the worst moment
▪ Standing on the edge waiting to do your bungee jump is the worst moment.
the worst offender
▪ Among causes of air pollution, car exhaust fumes may be the worst offender.
the worst recession
▪ Colombia is going through its worst recession in decades.
the worst scandal (=the biggest or most shocking)
▪ Total losses resulting from India's worst financial scandal amounted to Rs31,000 million.
the worst-case/worst scenario (=the worst thing that might happen)
▪ The worst-case scenario is that it is already too late to do anything about global warming.
things get worse
▪ As the recession proceeds, things will get worse.
went from bad to worse (=got even worse)
▪ When she arrived, things just went from bad to worse!
went from bad to worse (=got even worse)
▪ When she arrived, things just went from bad to worse!
worse off
▪ The rent increases will leave us worse off.
worse than useless (=not useful, and causing harm or problems)
▪ It would be worse than useless to try and complain about him.
worst excesses
▪ He lived through some of the worst excesses of apartheid in South Africa.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
behaviour
▪ The butcher chases them off the rock with kicks and abusive shouts, as though punishing them for bad behaviour.
▪ Good Book - bad behaviour I was delighted to read David Helton's biblical approach to his subject.
▪ In established States, less serious forms of bad behaviour are also permitted.
▪ What is her attitude towards tantrums or bad behaviour and what action would she take on your behalf?
▪ And, more importantly, some one who doesn't let her get away with tantrums, bossiness or bad behaviour.
▪ It is generally not useful to speculate that such time-removed antecedents are associated with bad behaviour.
▪ Try to catch him or her out in good as well as bad behaviour.
▪ Teachers were criticised for allowing bad behaviour.
boy
▪ Then old man Lawton goes missing and suspicion fixes on his son, Ronny, the local bad boy.
▪ His bad boy always drove me to my vivacious good girl.
▪ He always presented himself as the redeemed bad boy, but it was a lie, she says.
▪ He is not a bad boy.
▪ Another rehabilitated star admitting he was a bad boy.
▪ Nat is not, we say, actually, we say, a bad boy.
▪ In fact, Kaptan was not such a bad boy.
▪ Roberts' eyes widen, as if Gibson was the school bad boy and had just told off the principal.
case
▪ Indeed, at one point the peak of a worst case fluctuation actually exceeds that of the best case.
▪ The economy had not just a passing cold but a bad case of the flu.
▪ The worst case scenario suggests aircraft could be responsible for up to 43 percent of the projected rise in global temperature.
▪ Despite all this ingenuity, the Malibu has been built with a bad case of the rolling uglies.
▪ He says it's one of the worst cases he's seen.
▪ It was several times worse than the worst case the computer models had predicted.
▪ Its bite produces a worm which swells up the blood vessels, causing ulcers and, in the worst cases, blindness.
▪ He had arrived from Minneapolis in a linen suit and had a bad case of the trots.
day
▪ Perhaps the worst day of all Sunday.
▪ A Sheila na gigh which now resembled Beirut on a bad day.
▪ And you thought you were having a bad day.
▪ Mr Howard painted a picture of industrial unrest under Labour rivalling the worst days of the 1970s.
▪ However, on a bad day chaos reigns, and nobody can predict a likely departure time.
▪ They had a bad day in the office.
▪ After this bad day, anyone not tucked up in bed is making them suspicious.
debt
▪ Of the top 19 banks, 13 are expected to make losses this year as they write off bad debts.
▪ The previous year, when profits were just £36 million, bad debts totalled £903 million.
▪ The group made a £597m charge to cover possible bad debts.
▪ The incidence of bad debt, he concluded, was socially unacceptable and financially disastrous.
▪ Most large societies have also made heavy provisions against bad debts.
▪ The Royal Bank has suffered a slide in profits to £20.9 million from £57.7 million and has seen bad debts soar.
▪ In the event the anticipated collapse of the first genetic engineering company amid a pile of bad debts did not come about.
▪ Unfortunately most of the extra cash grabbed was swallowed up by bad debts.
dream
▪ All night he had bad dreams, terrible dreams.
▪ I was used to my bad dreams and the attacks of panic that followed them.
▪ Well, it happened, one night, between bad dreams.
▪ The illness and those involved faded like a bad dream.
▪ Be understanding if he or she suddenly starts wetting the bed or crying for attention following a bad dream in the night.
▪ I've forgotten to write down the bad dream I had last night.
▪ Well no, she didn't really have bad dreams - oh ... but that was before ... she remembered.
▪ They were not really bad dreams, more an aching yearning pain that seemed to permeate her very being.
experience
▪ But what happens if work is demonstrably and objectively a bad experience?
▪ Long jumping was a bad experience, and Edwards never distinguished himself in it.
▪ However, invariably, it is not only bad experiences of learning that are committed to memory.
▪ If they had a bad experience, it could be they wish not to speak to us.
▪ Hardness A hard Rottweiler is one who does not allow bad experiences to affect him permanently.
▪ They may have bad experiences from visiting prisons in the past.
▪ As I say I've not had anything like the bad experience of it that a lot of people have had.
▪ They had many bad experiences to relate on this score.
faith
▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.
▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.
▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.
▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.
▪ It is indeed difficult to conceive of bad faith which would not automatically render applicable one of the two traditional control mechanisms.
▪ Nevertheless, with the passage of time the Soviet side could begin to accuse us of bad faith.
▪ No doubt the missio, with its insistence on proving bad faith, had not been a wholly satisfactory remedy.
▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.
guy
▪ As I have had reason to observe before, the malai medics weren't such bad guys.
▪ In one I had to sit all night in the woods, completely still, while the bad guys circled nearby.
▪ For me, we were the good guys and they were the bad guys.
▪ The bad guy had become the good guy, the almost great guy.
▪ He is the uneducated country underdog who takes on the bad guys from the big city and wins.
▪ Maybe the bad guys on the ground thought we were giving them a bath or something.
▪ For years he had continued a running battle with producers and film companies whom he saw as the bad guys.
▪ Consider the sinister, theatrical laugh of the matinee bad guy.
habit
▪ Ever since I was a teenager, I have had the bad habit of pulling and twisting my hair.
▪ They are not aware of their bad habits.
▪ So what can we do about bad habits in horses?
▪ But that lone bad habit burns through your writing like a blowtorch, outshining all the others.
▪ A person may develop bad habits that need correction.
▪ The singer evinced one bad habit in the Mahler group, a tendency to scoop into opening phrases.
▪ Unwittingly she was operating the intermittent reinforcement principle in support of a bad habit!
▪ Simply determine which structural bad habit is most pronounced and edit for that.
idea
▪ She had no doubt it would be a very bad idea for them to go in search of Oliver and Cobalt.
▪ This is both a bad idea and bad timing.
▪ The paper claimed that most businessmen believed that it was a bad idea to change horses in midstream.
▪ Requiring a central bank to support a flagging currency will remain a bad idea after the union is formed, Tietmeyer said.
▪ I mean, it's not a bad idea, Chief Inspector.
▪ So fission power is an even worse idea.
▪ Here, he will say, is another fashionable and bad idea.
▪ A quick history lesson by their coaches may not be a bad idea.
luck
▪ But to Profumo's bad luck, other newsworthy circumstances were available to salt the story.
▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.
▪ He confesses that he had the bad luck to cross both Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush.
▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.
▪ People take something, then have all this bad luck.
▪ He believes the placement of the tree is bad luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
mood
▪ The feeling of contentment produced by gin-and-water had now disappeared, and the beadle was in a bad mood once more.
▪ Jerome had just changed his, but he was none the less still in a very bad mood.
▪ He was away all week and now arrived back on Friday evenings in a ready-made bad mood.
▪ No, our bad mood is caused by the bad mood of the adolescent children with whom we live.
▪ Today he was in a particularly bad mood.
▪ Despite bad moods and worse manners, the car could always be tamed by appreciation, patience and just enough rein.
▪ Ignore her, she is in a bad mood today.
name
▪ Bringing a bad name on two families.
▪ On the field, he is annoying and irritating and gives high-salaried athletes more of a bad name than they already have.
▪ Good technology has gained a bad name.
▪ This is the sort of self-serving, insincere baloney that gives good government a bad name.
▪ Bertie: That's exactly the sort of Stupid Cult that gives culture a bad name.
▪ This is the kind of disingenuous hair-splitting that gives politics a bad name.
▪ What happened is indisputable: students, and the institutions to which they belonged, acquired a bad name universally.
▪ These holy rollers gave all the churches a bad name.
news
▪ There is even worse news to come.
▪ But it was also because caregivers were reluctant, sometimes for good reason, to bear bad news.
▪ But the bad news is that the schemes require a 10-year commitment.
▪ Analysts had figured the bad news from the giant microprocessor maker would put a damper on technology stocks.
▪ After the next fifty yards I drew it out and took a look at the bad news.
▪ It is not all bad news for Gore.
▪ All this is bad news for Texas agriculture.
press
▪ Murders get a lot of bad press, so you don't publish the numbers.
▪ I think this is one of those projects that certainly got its share of bad press.
▪ Interwar Socialist Realism Socialist realism has a bad press in the West.
▪ We had bad press, we had a lawsuit.
▪ Free-electron lasers on the whole have had a rather bad press.
▪ Predictably, the law practice has caused Brown to be dogged by bad press.
▪ But gossip hasn't always had such bad press.
▪ Now I know Utopianism has recently had a bad press.
publicity
▪ Embarrassed bank officials agreed not to call in police rather than lose the entire haul and face bad publicity.
▪ When that received bad publicity, he promoted the Texas Guinan fat reducer.
▪ Much of the bad publicity came directly from the philistinism of the tabloid press.
▪ The delaying action kept the case out of court and minimized bad publicity until after he won re-election.
▪ Apparently there is such a thing as bad publicity.
▪ One reason commercial diet companies are having problems is that they received a lot of bad publicity in the early nineties.
▪ In the end the company Sure Style Windows, of Bury got nothing, but bad publicity.
▪ The workers said the campaign was attracting bad publicity for their company and putting their livelihoods at risk.
shape
▪ Others trying to do that, like Lucent, Alcatel and Nortel, are in at least as bad shape as Marconi.
▪ Sandy was in such bad shape.
▪ Everything up there's a complete write-off, and most of the first floor's in pretty bad shape.
▪ Uptown was still in bad shape.
▪ The galleys were in bad shape.
▪ You see children living in rooms that are in really bad shape.
▪ I knew that several of the others were in as bad shape as myself - probably worse.
▪ Representative government on Capitol Hill is in the worst shape I have seen it...
situation
▪ Students desperate to leave home may find themselves in a worse situation than the one they left.
▪ We put ourselves in bad situations.
▪ In my own school, there was another bad situation in a Fourth Grade class across the stair landing.
▪ Denying schooling, however, would just make a bad situation worse.
▪ This nearly always results in drifting further back without much gain of height and ending up in a worse situation than before.
▪ The worst situation was amidships, by the base of the mainmast.
start
▪ In the difficult job of getting through one's life happily, she had made a bad start.
▪ The bold event got off to a bad start.
▪ From that bad start, many little rotten apples grew.
▪ Only in 1993-94 did San Jose manage to survive a bad start.
▪ In an area with no obstetric service there is logic in this, but babies get the worst start in life.
▪ It was the worst start in the history of sports.
▪ Got off to a bad start because of its high price and lack of games.
▪ It was a bad start to the morning, and the rest of the day lived up to its promise.
taste
▪ And the resolution to this scene is exquisite in its chutzpah and farcical bad taste.
▪ Both are nuts, leave a bad taste and no one really understands why this tradition continues.&038;.
▪ I jolt awake with a bad taste in my mouth and my left eyelid stuck down again.
▪ When I suggested that oversized shirts were therefore counterproductive, he shut me up with a reminder of my previous bad taste.
▪ What exactly was Nichols' role: willing accomplice, or merely a man with a bad taste in friends?
▪ People just look faintly embarrassed at this bad taste.
▪ Private Parts is the second film so far this year that takes bad taste and turns it into a crusade.
temper
▪ Jane departed in floods of tears and Rosemary duly arrived, in a very bad temper.
▪ Too bad a promising young fellow should have dangerous opinions and a bad temper.
▪ We were all in a bad temper, acting like children.
▪ Kelly ruled by his bad temper.
▪ Sir Emmanuel had a terrible bad temper and was often full of whisky.
▪ As it was, I left in a bad temper which grew with every difficulty along the way.
▪ He believed she must have received some of his mailings by now as she was in an even worse temper than usual.
▪ It was clear, she told me, that Scott got his bad temper from his father.
thing
▪ That might be no bad thing.
▪ It turned out to be the next worst thing.
▪ Perhaps that was the worst thing that could happen to a human being.
▪ And the worst thing was that I really had little choice but to bow to their wishes.
▪ That is a bad thing in itself, for it means less competition and more wasted resources.
▪ Sometimes he did bad things just to be loved, and sometimes he hated himself for needing love so badly.
▪ And it is also good to think in terms of what bad things could happen.
things
▪ Metal fatigue has to be one of the worst things that can happen.
▪ They were out there trying to judge me and talk about all the bad things I did.
▪ Smallfry had forgotten to warn him because he had done so many bad things and caused a lot of trouble.
▪ She was a bad kid who did bad things.
▪ It was going to be a present for herself, a comfort after the bad things she had endured.
▪ Clearly, he has realized how bad things already are.
▪ It shows that however bad things are now - and they are pretty desperate - they are going to get much worse.
▪ And it is also good to think in terms of what bad things could happen.
time
▪ See, what happened to Rod is that he came along at a bad time in track and field.
▪ Amy glossed over the bad times.
▪ It was a bad time to have chosen for confrontation.
▪ That's what keeps friendships going, the bad times.
▪ I thought it would be great down there, but I started having a bad time so I went back to Newcastle.
▪ And it was still a bad time for the people in the middle.
▪ He threw one the very worst time, up on top of the wall, and the other kids all shunned away.
▪ His father, my ex-husband, was chronically depressed, just had a real bad time coping with life.
way
▪ Sometimes aircraft returning across the Channel are in a bad way.
▪ There are, however, better and worse ways of handling human problems.
▪ Not a bad way to go, in a blaze of your own gunpowder.
▪ I wanted in the worst way to ask him.
▪ She's in a bad way trying to have her pups.
▪ It was done in a bad way.
▪ Some are in a bad way so we share what we have.
▪ The feds wanted him to talk in the worst way.
weather
▪ Started four years ago, the work has been delayed by bad weather and geological problems.
▪ The only consoling thought was that the bad weather now extended south down the coast and would hold the Columbia up too.
▪ I don't know if it's pedestrianisation or the bad weather.
▪ The first, last year, was canceled because of bad weather.
▪ But it is not just bad weather which takes the gilt off the packed-lunch gingerbread.
▪ When bad weather turns up, one of the first places people turn to is the video store.
▪ Along the prom the amusements and rides were still open but the bad weather had kept people away.
▪ Our raft travelled so slowly that we could not run away from bad weather.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
good/bad timekeeper
a bad/difficult/sticky/rough patch
▪ Even when they knew he was going through a bad patch they would continue to deliver dangerous back-passes to him.
▪ Every team goes through a bad patch.
▪ Evode has gone through a sticky patch.
▪ Having hit a bad patch, financially, I decided I must try for some paid work with my knitting machine.
▪ Ruefully, she recalled her pleasure at the way the book, after a difficult patch, had begun to develop.
▪ Sometimes I am a real power pack of efficiency; then I hit a bad patch.
▪ Talk about hitting a bad patch.
▪ The Royal Family is certainly going through a rough patch.
a bad/poor sport
▪ He told everyone Norm was a hothead, a poor sport, a disgrace as a Catholic, and a lousy catcher.
▪ It is not good for a player to be considered a poor sport.
a bum/bad rap
▪ She said social programs of the 1960s have gotten a bad rap in the 1990s.
▪ They got me on a bum rap.
▪ Yalta's bad name was in some ways a bum rap.
a fate worse than death
▪ I knew that Grandma's visit would be a fate worse than death.
▪ After all, she didn't know him, and a fate worse than death might just be awaiting her.
▪ It certainly wasn't because he was trying to save her from a Fate Worse than Death.
▪ There are various Pelagias who are known as penitent harlots or virgin martyrs who died to escape a fate worse than death.
▪ We've even growled at the horse, and threatened it with a fate worse than death, but to no avail!
a good/bad etc shot
▪ But Nogai's a good shot.
▪ Ed Kelley was a good shot.
▪ He made a good shot from there and holed a three-foot putt for a quadruple-bogey eight.
▪ If I hit a bad shot, I try to minimize its effect.
▪ Klingler made it clear at the end of 1996 that he wanted a better shot at moving up the depth chart.
▪ That much was the least expected of a hunter who had made a bad shot.
▪ They have a better shot at claiming the governorship.
▪ Tom played a bad shot out of the bunker, and he does no more than charge straight at this press guy.
a good/bad judge of sth
▪ Sarah's not a very good judge of character.
▪ And for all his imagination, he was not a good judge of character on limited acquaintance.
▪ But Anya's a better judge of character than she used to be, back in the old homeland.
▪ He's also a good judge of a quick run.
▪ He was a good judge of character, hated hypocrisy, and had no time for conceit.
▪ I didn't protest as it was his fence officially, and he was supposed to be a good judge of torque.
▪ It was not that he was too sure of himself simply that he was a good judge of the possible.
▪ Munnings, he told reporters, was a better judge of horses than paintings.
at (the) worst
▪ Many drivers feel their job is unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.
▪ Developing these required equations is at best difficult and at worst nearly impossible.
▪ Him, with him: the worst man in the worst place at the worst time.
▪ If we drop a tin can probably nothing will happen; at the worst we may make a small dent.
▪ In most cases doing a course of any kind will, at worst, just be a small waste of time.
▪ Naturally, it happened at the worst possible time.
▪ Patient and neutral stares at worst.
▪ The first assumption of the Census Bureau, therefore, must be viewed as fatuous at worst, naive at best.
▪ Up until then I had sometimes seen writing as at best a compulsion and at worst a sickness.
at your best/worst/most effective etc
bad faith
▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.
▪ Guinness was accused of bad faith, in particular for failing to adhere to promises made in the official offer documents.
▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.
▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.
▪ In Anisminic, Lord Reid gave the following examples: It may have given its decision in bad faith.
▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.
▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.
▪ What intrigues me about programmes like You've Been Framed is their bad faith.
bad form
▪ He asked Billy what he thought the worst form of execution was.
▪ Self-interest was the worst sin and slaveholding was the worst form of self-interest.
▪ Tainting the courts with politics is very bad form, but apparently irresistible.
▪ The most terrible bad form. 5.
▪ They need an exorcist to figure out what in the devil possessed them to return to their worst form from last season.
▪ We all now agree with Churchill's adage: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
▪ Wilful impediment of the sacred moves was not only ill-mannered, but the worst form of blasphemy.
bad hair day
▪ I felt miserable and realised the hair of my dreams had turned into the worst bad hair day you could imagine.
▪ Your basic bad hair day at the photo lab.
bad luck
▪ Bad luck, Paul. I'm sure you'll pass next time.
▪ It was just bad luck that she happened to get sick that day.
▪ Oh what a shame. Bad luck Chris.
▪ She seems to have nothing but bad luck when it comes to men.
▪ Talk about bad luck! Last night Ray's car was broken into for the second time this month.
▪ All that stood in the way of victory was a touch of bad luck.
▪ Despite their current run of bad luck, the Giants are drawing record crowds at Scottsdale Stadium.
▪ Is it because such a meeting would bring bad luck or is there another reason?
▪ It is your bad luck if the warren you choose to ferret is one of these.
▪ Only bad luck and poor finishing prevented Hibs from grabbing an equaliser.
▪ They believe it is bad luck.
bad/difficult/hard etc enough
▪ Even a Patel, probably a Bhatt if I looked hard enough.
▪ It's bad enough trying to fly with unequal line lengths; having an asymmetric kite can be most frustrating!
▪ She identified the problem not as trying too hard to live up to a domestic ideal but as not trying hard enough.
▪ Since the cold war ended in 1988, they have worked hard enough to produce some kind of an economic miracle.
▪ That was going to be difficult enough anyway.
▪ The ties with the past difficult enough to sever already.
▪ This would be bad enough if California prisons were full of nothing but Charles Mansons.
bad/good sailor
▪ Although he was a good sailor, Columbus was a bad governor.
▪ As a yacht delivery skipper he had to be a damn good sailor.
▪ Even the best sailors can be swept into them, apart from which they can cause all sorts of damage to your equipment.
▪ How he got there no-one knows, but he was a very good sailor and an even better artist.
▪ I have never been a good sailor, and kept to my bunk for the first part of the journey.
▪ Ironically I do not make a very good sailor.
▪ Turns out all of us are pretty good sailors.
bad/hard/tough luck
▪ Can't have that, can we, not on top of all your other hard luck.
▪ He felt that this little piece of bad luck might affect his whole day.
▪ I kept looking into the mirror and hating my bad luck, but there they were.
▪ There were lots of near misses: some great saves from both keepers, and sheer bad luck.
▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
bad/ill feeling
▪ There have been bad feelings between area residents and police.
▪ Even though Amelia participated so little in school activities, she harbored no ill feelings toward Hyde Park.
▪ I figure there had to be some bad feeling.
▪ I got a very bad feeling as we pitched into the bathroom and-fumbled for the mouthwash.
▪ I have bad feelings for the smugglers, though.
▪ It's got bad feelings for me, this room.
▪ It was the start of bad feeling between the two.
▪ Jane Blasio harbors no ill feelings toward Hicks.
▪ There is no bad feeling between us.
be good/bad news for sb
▪ House prices are very low, which is good news for first-time buyers.
▪ Although the licensing agreement is good news for Apple, some wonder whether it is too little, too late.
▪ As Ohio goes, so goes the nation, and that may be good news for President Clinton.
▪ Gordon Brown also promised Labour would be good news for big employers ... like the nearby Rover plant in Cowley.
▪ Growing demand for such equipment is good news for the helicopter's distributors McAlpine based at Kidlington in Oxfordshire.
▪ Paperwork for files has been reduced and the threshold for compliance raised; both changes are good news for filers.
▪ The latest financial results are good news for a company that has struggled for years.
▪ This is good news for the hotelier who is prepared.
▪ This theft can only be bad news for the preservation movement.
be in a good/bad etc place
be in sb's good/bad books
be meant to be good/excellent/bad etc
be your own worst enemy
▪ Many drivers are their own worst enemy -- driving too close, driving too fast, all the usual faults.
▪ My mother was her own worst enemy. She knew she was ill but she did nothing to help herself.
▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.
▪ My father was his own worst enemy.
▪ People are their own worst enemies.
▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.
▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?
▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.
better/harder/worse etc still
▪ And 245 specialty stock funds that focus on particular industries did better still, averaging a 6. 5 percent gain.
▪ But perhaps the early evening was better still?
▪ He didn't talk because he was afraid of losing the pole or, worse still, falling in.
▪ I started to hunt for a cheap restaurant or, better still, a snack shop.
▪ I thought that it would soon pass, and it did - for you to work harder still.
▪ Or better still, make a real talent show instead.
▪ Or better still, there was the village school practically next door!
▪ With hindsight, it would have better still to lock in a few more gains.
bring out the best/worst in sb
▪ Ingram always seems to bring out the best in his players.
▪ And Vince was obviously a great coach; he brought out the best in his team and whoever played him.
▪ But the Washington Wizards have a way of bringing out the best in their opponents.
▪ But, says Markert, there is something about one-way communication that can also bring out the worst in people.
▪ Campaigns seem to bring out the worst in Bob Dole.
▪ It brings out the best in us.
▪ Maybe something like they tend to bring out the best in us.
▪ So, to bring out the best in your cooking make sure you use the purest soy sauce, Kikkoman Soy Sauce.
▪ Yet it was not an unsuccessful attempt to bring out the best in his audience.
come off best/better/worst etc
▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.
▪ Bullock comes off best because her complaining seems so valid.
▪ His foster-child comes off best, but in addition each of two nurses receives a tenth of his estate.
▪ It may seem, so far, that in terms of clearly defined benefits, the client comes off best out of the deal.
▪ Prior to that Meath had come off best when they accounted for Down in the 1990 league decider.
▪ The lightning, it seemed to Lydia, had undoubtedly come off best in that encounter.
▪ The problem is that history sometimes comes off better.
couldn't be better/worse/more pleased etc
do sb a good/bad turn
▪ She was only trying to do James a good turn.
do your/his/her/their worst
▪ Let her do her worst to reach him.
▪ Sometimes they successfully slowed or blocked the path of the conquistadores when these exploiters were out to do their worst.
every bit as important/bad/good etc
▪ Barbara was every bit as good as she sounded.
▪ Here, the Fund runs many family projects that are less well-known but doing work that is every bit as important.
▪ It is for this reason that good balanced design is every bit as important as meticulous craftsmanship.
▪ It takes no more than five minutes and tastes every bit as good at the oven-baked variety.
▪ The explanation is every bit as important as the numbers!
▪ The traffic was every bit as bad as had been predicted.
▪ Things every bit as bad happen there, too.
▪ To her horror it was every bit as bad as she'd feared, and possibly even a tiny bit worse.
expect/fear the worst
▪ Distillery boss Billy Hamilton fears the worst after Heath was assisted off in the second-half with a torn calf muscle.
▪ From what he has heard he fears the worst about the likelihood of a quick turnaround on the field.
▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.
▪ Leading the mob assault into the fisherman's cabin, the pastor expects the worst.
▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.
▪ Quite frankly we expected the worst.
fall on hard/bad times
▪ At 21 she is set for stardom, but she still finds time for people who have fallen on hard times.
▪ Even by political standards, Gingrich very quickly fell on hard times.
▪ I assumed that if a person fell on hard times some one else in the wider family would rescue them.
▪ Interestingly, though, the bottom 10 includes many household names fallen on hard times.
▪ The Cambridge University Automobile Club had clearly fallen on hard times, too.
▪ The model cities program fell on hard times soon after it began.
▪ With the outbreak of war, the shop fell on harder times.
▪ Worse, because of Jack the father has fallen on hard times and must meet all kinds of debts.
fear the worst
Fearing the worst, police have called in reinforcements to help control the crowds.
▪ After I hadn't heard from him for several hours, I began to fear the worst.
▪ Rescuers feared the worst for the men trapped in the mine.
▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.
▪ Mind you, I feared the worst for this year's crop of pantomimes.
▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.
▪ Rumours about impending changes will occur anyway, and staff not fully informed are likely to fear the worst.
▪ Then they called police and stayed up all night -- fearing the worst.
for better or (for) worse
▪ The reality is that, for better or worse, the world of publishing has changed.
▪ All five, for better or worse, have received recent votes of confidence from their respective general managers or team presidents.
▪ And for better or worse, the new interactivity brings enormous political leverage to ordinary citizens at relatively little cost.
▪ And the consequences could be even more startling, for better or for worse.
▪ Decisions made in any of these places can hit our pocketbooks and our peace of mind, for better or for worse.
▪ He has toted the ball and the expectations, for better or worse.
▪ He was her husband ... for better or worse, he was her husband.
▪ Medical students in prolonged contact with junior doctors learn attitudes by example, for better or for worse.
▪ Today we know for better or for worse that cops, like doctors and priests, are merely human.
get off to a good/bad etc start
get/be given a bad press
get/have the worst of it
▪ I should not have exasperated him for I always have the worst of it.
good 'un/bad 'un/little 'un etc
good/bad/poor etc effort
▪ Batter Up Despite my best efforts, I could not stop eating the skinny fries that came with the combination.
▪ Dealing with these individual and family concerns will require the best efforts of mental health professionals.
▪ Football is a team game; offense and defense must work together to produce the best effort.
▪ However, objects decay despite our best efforts to conserve them.
▪ In spite of Holford-Walker's best efforts, the moran evaded his supervision.
▪ In spite of the rain's best efforts, I was pleased that I had been able to observe and film interesting mink behaviour.
▪ Or maybe they disapproved of or were indifferent to your best efforts.
▪ Peter Pike and Davern Lambert had good efforts before Musgrove completed his hat-trick with a good shot on the turn.
good/bad/poor etc seller
▪ Alcohol and western cigarettes are best sellers.
▪ Convinced it had a best seller on its hands, Random House came up with the unorthodox idea of relaunching the book.
▪ Drosnin is an investigative newspaper reporter who once wrote a best seller about Howard Hughes.
▪ His album Stars was last year's best seller and spawned a string of hit singles.
▪ It was the earliest best seller.
▪ Q.. What makes a book a best seller?
▪ The man who made a best seller out of a defamatory rant now wants to make a best seller out of repentance.
▪ Voice over Mrs De Winter is already tipped as being one of the best sellers this year.
good/bad/poor etc speller
▪ Only good spellers can spell easily orally.
▪ They give the good speller a chance to use his skill, but may depress a poor speller.
good/best/bad practice
▪ An annex citing examples of good practice would also be helpful.
▪ Carlesimo said Tuesday, adding that Marshall had just put in his best practice of camp.
▪ It is good practice to make a note of the client's telephone number on the file.
▪ Supporters of those with special needs should be exemplars of such good practice.
▪ The good practice presented in Table 2 and Appendix 3 addresses many of the factors important to the control of risk.
▪ There is a danger in the search for good practice of looking only at those schools with good academic records.
▪ These premises are often inadequate to support good practice.
▪ This week, for example, the permanent secretaries of all government departments will meet to discuss best practice in procurement.
have a high/low/good/bad etc opinion of sb/sth
▪ All I can say to that is that I have a higher opinion of your judgement than he has.
▪ He did not, in any case, have a high opinion of Santayana - an animus which Santayana reciprocated towards Eliot.
▪ Politicians generally have a low opinion of the press, just as the press generally has a low opinion of lawmakers.
▪ She does not seem to have a high opinion of married life.
he's/she's bad news
if the worst comes to the worst
in a good/an ill/a bad humour
in a new/different/bad etc light
▪ But, like the National Health Service, education could be seen in a different light.
▪ He found there a country whose characteristics cast the philosophy of birth control in a new light.
▪ I've seen him at a distance, I've seen him in bad light.
▪ I think we both saw young Mr Venn in new lights, and they were neither favorable nor unfavorable, just new.
▪ It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.
▪ So let us fantasise, and see industry and agriculture in a new light.
▪ They literally saw the whole world in a new light.
▪ They perch too far away in bad light.
in good nick/in bad nick etc
in good/bad/poor etc shape
▪ But if I was in better shape, I'd be sitting up there.
▪ He could still be in good shape.
▪ He said Texpool is in good shape now.
▪ If only he could tell them he was all right, in good shape, considering ....
▪ This saw the band in good shape, retaining their traditions of twisted passions and bleak emotional narratives.
▪ This year, however, Dole appears in good shape in both locations.
▪ Uptown was still in bad shape.
▪ We found he was in good shape, but had no food in his intestines.
just as good/bad/big etc
▪ And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad.
▪ At home it was just as bad.
▪ I would say the top teams are just as good, but the lesser teams have caught up a little bit.
▪ It was just as good a place as any to get away from Julius for a while.
▪ Now Allan Ahlberg has written two more stories about the same skeletons, and they're just as good.
▪ Or something else, just as bad, could happen.
▪ People accuse the whites of being prejudiced, but blacks can be just as bad.
▪ Virginia says sending them to a sister training program it has established at nearby Mary Baldwin College is just as good.
make a good/bad fist of sth
none the worse/better etc (for sth)
▪ Although the animal glowed rosy-pink, it appeared none the worse for its ordeal.
▪ I recovered, my mouth none the worse for it, after all.
▪ Peter's little pet was clearly none the worse for its time in the underworld.
not half bad
▪ The pizza here isn't half bad.
not so big/good/bad etc
▪ But so happen, one little boy not so good.
▪ But it's not so bad down here.
▪ Compared to how I feel, how I look is not so bad.
▪ It is not so good at knowing how to do it.
▪ My tongue not so good anyway.
▪ She began to think that perhaps village life was not so bad.
▪ Some years it was bad, other years not so bad.
▪ When he was hot, he was hot, but for me the whole thing was not so good.
plumb the depths (of despair/misery/bad taste etc)
sb's bark is worse than their bite
sb's worst fears were realized
▪ My worst fears were realized when I saw the test questions.
▪ His worst fears were realized and he was arrested.
show sb in a good/bad etc light
take a turn for the worse
▪ Stock prices have taken a turn for the worse.
the best of a bad lot/bunch
the biggest/worst etc (sth) yet
▪ And the worst was yet to come.
▪ Her third night here and it had been the worst one yet.
▪ No, the worst ... Yet is she listening now?
▪ That was the worst task yet, as Psyche saw when she approached the waterfall.
▪ The decision opens the biggest policy rift yet between Holyrood and Westminster.
▪ The two have returned from a disastrous holiday in Greecebut the worst is yet to come.
the worst
▪ Most of the girls were pretty mean, but Sabrina was the worst.
the worst of sth
▪ Against the far wall, shielded from the worst of the rain, were five bodies neatly laid out.
▪ And the worst of the caregivers were a disaster.
▪ And then there's you. ` ` Me? ` ` You're the worst of the lot.
▪ At this moment in history, however, the White House personifies the worst of political greed and excess.
▪ Black people, for example, need not imitate the worst of white competitive consumers.
▪ By the middle of the next afternoon, the worst of the headache was gone.
▪ On the eve of the council the worst of horrors was revealed.
▪ Would she ring the warning bell that cushioned the little fellow from the worst of it?
think the best/worst of sb
▪ Ellie's the type of person that always thinks the best of people.
▪ He thought the worst of Mitch and clearly thought that left to herself she would ring London at once.
▪ I was so ready to think the worst of him, she wailed inwardly.
▪ My immediate reaction, whether it be a man or a woman, is to think the worst of them.
▪ The prospect of Guy leaving, thinking the worst of her, was unbearable.
▪ Why should you think the worst of me?
▪ You always think the worst of me.
turn up like a bad penny
with (a) good/bad grace
▪ Admit temporary defeat with good grace, retreat, reconsider and wait.
▪ But he tucked his manuscript away with a good grace.
▪ He threw himself with good grace into everything, even this.
▪ Life is very crude, and bonnie Princes Street a dream, but we soldier on with a good grace.
▪ Mr Macmillan was, according to colleagues, prepared to give way with good grace when he could not carry the Cabinet.
▪ Sport only thrives if both parties play by the rules, and accept the results with good grace.
▪ They accept his habitual interruptions with good grace.
▪ This must have been irksome for them, but Mrs Webster accepted it as her war work with good grace.
worse luck
▪ Bad luck for Venus, worse luck for the 12,000 fans, but hey, what can you do?
▪ I have to go to secretarial school, worse luck.
▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.
▪ You're a bad agent and you're worse luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
worst of all
▪ Mike's so boring, and worst of all he never stops talking.
▪ And worst of all, the Hare got rid Of far more than the Tortoise did.
▪ And worst of all, their services are no longer in demand.
▪ And, worst of all, you don't remember who you are.
▪ But worst of all were the comparisons being made between Monty Clift and Jekyll and Hyde.
▪ Or, worst of all, exploding at work?
▪ Perhaps worst of all, there are those stressful situations where one is accustomed to turn to tobacco for support.
▪ The twelfth labor was the worst of all.
▪ To abuse hospitality was the most horrid thing; worst of all.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
bad apples
Bad cat! Get off the table!
bad housing conditions
bad management
▪ a book full of bad language
▪ Critics blame the students' poor test performances on bad teaching.
▪ Did you have a bad day at work?
▪ Frank had a bad flu before Christmas.
▪ He's the worst driver I've ever seen.
▪ He had a bad influence on his younger brother.
▪ He had an especially bad time at boarding school.
▪ He plays one of the bad guys in the movie.
▪ I'm afraid I have some bad news.
▪ I'm very bad at remembering people's names.
▪ I was always really bad at French!
▪ If the weather's bad, we could go to the museum instead.
▪ In most movies, the bad guy gets caught in the end.
▪ In the 1980s, their cars had a bad reputation for reliability.
▪ Is there any crime worse than murdering a child?
▪ It's the worst book she's ever written.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A sweetheart, this little lady, not bad legs either.
▪ But the fuel crisis was not all bad news for riders.
▪ But when the cable came it was bad news.
▪ But you were bad with your eyes all the same, I remember you were in a darkened room for days.
▪ The first, last year, was canceled because of bad weather.
▪ The sharpest rise in shop sales for almost 12 years encouraged hopes that the worst of the recession is over.
▪ This was often a direct consequence of bad diet: too much matooke and nothing else.
II.noun
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
good/bad timekeeper
a bad/difficult/sticky/rough patch
▪ Even when they knew he was going through a bad patch they would continue to deliver dangerous back-passes to him.
▪ Every team goes through a bad patch.
▪ Evode has gone through a sticky patch.
▪ Having hit a bad patch, financially, I decided I must try for some paid work with my knitting machine.
▪ Ruefully, she recalled her pleasure at the way the book, after a difficult patch, had begun to develop.
▪ Sometimes I am a real power pack of efficiency; then I hit a bad patch.
▪ Talk about hitting a bad patch.
▪ The Royal Family is certainly going through a rough patch.
a bad/poor sport
▪ He told everyone Norm was a hothead, a poor sport, a disgrace as a Catholic, and a lousy catcher.
▪ It is not good for a player to be considered a poor sport.
a bum/bad rap
▪ She said social programs of the 1960s have gotten a bad rap in the 1990s.
▪ They got me on a bum rap.
▪ Yalta's bad name was in some ways a bum rap.
a fate worse than death
▪ I knew that Grandma's visit would be a fate worse than death.
▪ After all, she didn't know him, and a fate worse than death might just be awaiting her.
▪ It certainly wasn't because he was trying to save her from a Fate Worse than Death.
▪ There are various Pelagias who are known as penitent harlots or virgin martyrs who died to escape a fate worse than death.
▪ We've even growled at the horse, and threatened it with a fate worse than death, but to no avail!
a good/bad etc shot
▪ But Nogai's a good shot.
▪ Ed Kelley was a good shot.
▪ He made a good shot from there and holed a three-foot putt for a quadruple-bogey eight.
▪ If I hit a bad shot, I try to minimize its effect.
▪ Klingler made it clear at the end of 1996 that he wanted a better shot at moving up the depth chart.
▪ That much was the least expected of a hunter who had made a bad shot.
▪ They have a better shot at claiming the governorship.
▪ Tom played a bad shot out of the bunker, and he does no more than charge straight at this press guy.
a good/bad judge of sth
▪ Sarah's not a very good judge of character.
▪ And for all his imagination, he was not a good judge of character on limited acquaintance.
▪ But Anya's a better judge of character than she used to be, back in the old homeland.
▪ He's also a good judge of a quick run.
▪ He was a good judge of character, hated hypocrisy, and had no time for conceit.
▪ I didn't protest as it was his fence officially, and he was supposed to be a good judge of torque.
▪ It was not that he was too sure of himself simply that he was a good judge of the possible.
▪ Munnings, he told reporters, was a better judge of horses than paintings.
at (the) worst
▪ Many drivers feel their job is unpleasant at best, and dangerous at worst.
▪ Developing these required equations is at best difficult and at worst nearly impossible.
▪ Him, with him: the worst man in the worst place at the worst time.
▪ If we drop a tin can probably nothing will happen; at the worst we may make a small dent.
▪ In most cases doing a course of any kind will, at worst, just be a small waste of time.
▪ Naturally, it happened at the worst possible time.
▪ Patient and neutral stares at worst.
▪ The first assumption of the Census Bureau, therefore, must be viewed as fatuous at worst, naive at best.
▪ Up until then I had sometimes seen writing as at best a compulsion and at worst a sickness.
at your best/worst/most effective etc
bad faith
▪ And some councils are acting in bad faith.
▪ Guinness was accused of bad faith, in particular for failing to adhere to promises made in the official offer documents.
▪ I can't help feeling, therefore, that your critical position relies on a heavy dose of bad faith.
▪ I think a leap of bad faith was made.
▪ In Anisminic, Lord Reid gave the following examples: It may have given its decision in bad faith.
▪ In the present case the plaintiff did not allege, nor did the judge find, any bad faith by the defendants.
▪ School officials can lose this qualified privilege if they act in bad faith or without regard for whether the statements are true.
▪ What intrigues me about programmes like You've Been Framed is their bad faith.
bad form
▪ He asked Billy what he thought the worst form of execution was.
▪ Self-interest was the worst sin and slaveholding was the worst form of self-interest.
▪ Tainting the courts with politics is very bad form, but apparently irresistible.
▪ The most terrible bad form. 5.
▪ They need an exorcist to figure out what in the devil possessed them to return to their worst form from last season.
▪ We all now agree with Churchill's adage: democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.
▪ Wilful impediment of the sacred moves was not only ill-mannered, but the worst form of blasphemy.
bad hair day
▪ I felt miserable and realised the hair of my dreams had turned into the worst bad hair day you could imagine.
▪ Your basic bad hair day at the photo lab.
bad luck
▪ Bad luck, Paul. I'm sure you'll pass next time.
▪ It was just bad luck that she happened to get sick that day.
▪ Oh what a shame. Bad luck Chris.
▪ She seems to have nothing but bad luck when it comes to men.
▪ Talk about bad luck! Last night Ray's car was broken into for the second time this month.
▪ All that stood in the way of victory was a touch of bad luck.
▪ Despite their current run of bad luck, the Giants are drawing record crowds at Scottsdale Stadium.
▪ Is it because such a meeting would bring bad luck or is there another reason?
▪ It is your bad luck if the warren you choose to ferret is one of these.
▪ Only bad luck and poor finishing prevented Hibs from grabbing an equaliser.
▪ They believe it is bad luck.
bad/difficult/hard etc enough
▪ Even a Patel, probably a Bhatt if I looked hard enough.
▪ It's bad enough trying to fly with unequal line lengths; having an asymmetric kite can be most frustrating!
▪ She identified the problem not as trying too hard to live up to a domestic ideal but as not trying hard enough.
▪ Since the cold war ended in 1988, they have worked hard enough to produce some kind of an economic miracle.
▪ That was going to be difficult enough anyway.
▪ The ties with the past difficult enough to sever already.
▪ This would be bad enough if California prisons were full of nothing but Charles Mansons.
bad/good sailor
▪ Although he was a good sailor, Columbus was a bad governor.
▪ As a yacht delivery skipper he had to be a damn good sailor.
▪ Even the best sailors can be swept into them, apart from which they can cause all sorts of damage to your equipment.
▪ How he got there no-one knows, but he was a very good sailor and an even better artist.
▪ I have never been a good sailor, and kept to my bunk for the first part of the journey.
▪ Ironically I do not make a very good sailor.
▪ Turns out all of us are pretty good sailors.
bad/hard/tough luck
▪ Can't have that, can we, not on top of all your other hard luck.
▪ He felt that this little piece of bad luck might affect his whole day.
▪ I kept looking into the mirror and hating my bad luck, but there they were.
▪ There were lots of near misses: some great saves from both keepers, and sheer bad luck.
▪ Unfortunately, the gents had bad luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
bad/ill feeling
▪ There have been bad feelings between area residents and police.
▪ Even though Amelia participated so little in school activities, she harbored no ill feelings toward Hyde Park.
▪ I figure there had to be some bad feeling.
▪ I got a very bad feeling as we pitched into the bathroom and-fumbled for the mouthwash.
▪ I have bad feelings for the smugglers, though.
▪ It's got bad feelings for me, this room.
▪ It was the start of bad feeling between the two.
▪ Jane Blasio harbors no ill feelings toward Hicks.
▪ There is no bad feeling between us.
be good/bad news for sb
▪ House prices are very low, which is good news for first-time buyers.
▪ Although the licensing agreement is good news for Apple, some wonder whether it is too little, too late.
▪ As Ohio goes, so goes the nation, and that may be good news for President Clinton.
▪ Gordon Brown also promised Labour would be good news for big employers ... like the nearby Rover plant in Cowley.
▪ Growing demand for such equipment is good news for the helicopter's distributors McAlpine based at Kidlington in Oxfordshire.
▪ Paperwork for files has been reduced and the threshold for compliance raised; both changes are good news for filers.
▪ The latest financial results are good news for a company that has struggled for years.
▪ This is good news for the hotelier who is prepared.
▪ This theft can only be bad news for the preservation movement.
be in a good/bad etc place
be in sb's good/bad books
be meant to be good/excellent/bad etc
be none the worse for sth
be your own worst enemy
▪ Many drivers are their own worst enemy -- driving too close, driving too fast, all the usual faults.
▪ My mother was her own worst enemy. She knew she was ill but she did nothing to help herself.
▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.
▪ My father was his own worst enemy.
▪ People are their own worst enemies.
▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.
▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?
▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.
be your own worst enemy
▪ In other words, we are our own worst enemy.
▪ My father was his own worst enemy.
▪ People are their own worst enemies.
▪ Players can be real snobs about names, too, so they are their own worst enemies.
▪ To what extent would she say she was her own worst enemy?
▪ You could say that Gilly is her own worst enemy.
better/harder/worse etc still
▪ And 245 specialty stock funds that focus on particular industries did better still, averaging a 6. 5 percent gain.
▪ But perhaps the early evening was better still?
▪ He didn't talk because he was afraid of losing the pole or, worse still, falling in.
▪ I started to hunt for a cheap restaurant or, better still, a snack shop.
▪ I thought that it would soon pass, and it did - for you to work harder still.
▪ Or better still, make a real talent show instead.
▪ Or better still, there was the village school practically next door!
▪ With hindsight, it would have better still to lock in a few more gains.
bring out the best/worst in sb
▪ Ingram always seems to bring out the best in his players.
▪ And Vince was obviously a great coach; he brought out the best in his team and whoever played him.
▪ But the Washington Wizards have a way of bringing out the best in their opponents.
▪ But, says Markert, there is something about one-way communication that can also bring out the worst in people.
▪ Campaigns seem to bring out the worst in Bob Dole.
▪ It brings out the best in us.
▪ Maybe something like they tend to bring out the best in us.
▪ So, to bring out the best in your cooking make sure you use the purest soy sauce, Kikkoman Soy Sauce.
▪ Yet it was not an unsuccessful attempt to bring out the best in his audience.
come off best/better/worst etc
▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.
▪ Bullock comes off best because her complaining seems so valid.
▪ His foster-child comes off best, but in addition each of two nurses receives a tenth of his estate.
▪ It may seem, so far, that in terms of clearly defined benefits, the client comes off best out of the deal.
▪ Prior to that Meath had come off best when they accounted for Down in the 1990 league decider.
▪ The lightning, it seemed to Lydia, had undoubtedly come off best in that encounter.
▪ The problem is that history sometimes comes off better.
come off worst
▪ Alec Davidson, for example, was one of those who came off worst.
couldn't be better/worse/more pleased etc
do sb a good/bad turn
▪ She was only trying to do James a good turn.
do your/his/her/their worst
▪ Let her do her worst to reach him.
▪ Sometimes they successfully slowed or blocked the path of the conquistadores when these exploiters were out to do their worst.
every bit as important/bad/good etc
▪ Barbara was every bit as good as she sounded.
▪ Here, the Fund runs many family projects that are less well-known but doing work that is every bit as important.
▪ It is for this reason that good balanced design is every bit as important as meticulous craftsmanship.
▪ It takes no more than five minutes and tastes every bit as good at the oven-baked variety.
▪ The explanation is every bit as important as the numbers!
▪ The traffic was every bit as bad as had been predicted.
▪ Things every bit as bad happen there, too.
▪ To her horror it was every bit as bad as she'd feared, and possibly even a tiny bit worse.
expect/fear the worst
▪ Distillery boss Billy Hamilton fears the worst after Heath was assisted off in the second-half with a torn calf muscle.
▪ From what he has heard he fears the worst about the likelihood of a quick turnaround on the field.
▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.
▪ Leading the mob assault into the fisherman's cabin, the pastor expects the worst.
▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.
▪ Quite frankly we expected the worst.
fall on hard/bad times
▪ At 21 she is set for stardom, but she still finds time for people who have fallen on hard times.
▪ Even by political standards, Gingrich very quickly fell on hard times.
▪ I assumed that if a person fell on hard times some one else in the wider family would rescue them.
▪ Interestingly, though, the bottom 10 includes many household names fallen on hard times.
▪ The Cambridge University Automobile Club had clearly fallen on hard times, too.
▪ The model cities program fell on hard times soon after it began.
▪ With the outbreak of war, the shop fell on harder times.
▪ Worse, because of Jack the father has fallen on hard times and must meet all kinds of debts.
fear the worst
Fearing the worst, police have called in reinforcements to help control the crowds.
▪ After I hadn't heard from him for several hours, I began to fear the worst.
▪ Rescuers feared the worst for the men trapped in the mine.
▪ I knew I was being irrational but I began to fear the worst.
▪ Mind you, I feared the worst for this year's crop of pantomimes.
▪ Only then did we begin to fear the worst.
▪ Rumours about impending changes will occur anyway, and staff not fully informed are likely to fear the worst.
▪ Then they called police and stayed up all night -- fearing the worst.
for better or (for) worse
▪ The reality is that, for better or worse, the world of publishing has changed.
▪ All five, for better or worse, have received recent votes of confidence from their respective general managers or team presidents.
▪ And for better or worse, the new interactivity brings enormous political leverage to ordinary citizens at relatively little cost.
▪ And the consequences could be even more startling, for better or for worse.
▪ Decisions made in any of these places can hit our pocketbooks and our peace of mind, for better or for worse.
▪ He has toted the ball and the expectations, for better or worse.
▪ He was her husband ... for better or worse, he was her husband.
▪ Medical students in prolonged contact with junior doctors learn attitudes by example, for better or for worse.
▪ Today we know for better or for worse that cops, like doctors and priests, are merely human.
get off to a good/bad etc start
get/be given a bad press
get/have the worst of it
▪ I should not have exasperated him for I always have the worst of it.
go from bad to worse
▪ As 1931 went from bad to worse the possibility of another marriage began to seem her best hope of salvation.
▪ It went from bad to worse as the heavens opened and turned the circuit into one huge puddle.
▪ Matters continued to go from bad to worse.
▪ Matters went from bad to worse.
▪ On Ithaca, the island where his home was, things had gone from bad to worse.
▪ That they are going from bad to worse.
good 'un/bad 'un/little 'un etc
good/bad/poor etc effort
▪ Batter Up Despite my best efforts, I could not stop eating the skinny fries that came with the combination.
▪ Dealing with these individual and family concerns will require the best efforts of mental health professionals.
▪ Football is a team game; offense and defense must work together to produce the best effort.
▪ However, objects decay despite our best efforts to conserve them.
▪ In spite of Holford-Walker's best efforts, the moran evaded his supervision.
▪ In spite of the rain's best efforts, I was pleased that I had been able to observe and film interesting mink behaviour.
▪ Or maybe they disapproved of or were indifferent to your best efforts.
▪ Peter Pike and Davern Lambert had good efforts before Musgrove completed his hat-trick with a good shot on the turn.
good/bad/poor etc seller
▪ Alcohol and western cigarettes are best sellers.
▪ Convinced it had a best seller on its hands, Random House came up with the unorthodox idea of relaunching the book.
▪ Drosnin is an investigative newspaper reporter who once wrote a best seller about Howard Hughes.
▪ His album Stars was last year's best seller and spawned a string of hit singles.
▪ It was the earliest best seller.
▪ Q.. What makes a book a best seller?
▪ The man who made a best seller out of a defamatory rant now wants to make a best seller out of repentance.
▪ Voice over Mrs De Winter is already tipped as being one of the best sellers this year.
good/bad/poor etc speller
▪ Only good spellers can spell easily orally.
▪ They give the good speller a chance to use his skill, but may depress a poor speller.
good/best/bad practice
▪ An annex citing examples of good practice would also be helpful.
▪ Carlesimo said Tuesday, adding that Marshall had just put in his best practice of camp.
▪ It is good practice to make a note of the client's telephone number on the file.
▪ Supporters of those with special needs should be exemplars of such good practice.
▪ The good practice presented in Table 2 and Appendix 3 addresses many of the factors important to the control of risk.
▪ There is a danger in the search for good practice of looking only at those schools with good academic records.
▪ These premises are often inadequate to support good practice.
▪ This week, for example, the permanent secretaries of all government departments will meet to discuss best practice in procurement.
have a high/low/good/bad etc opinion of sb/sth
▪ All I can say to that is that I have a higher opinion of your judgement than he has.
▪ He did not, in any case, have a high opinion of Santayana - an animus which Santayana reciprocated towards Eliot.
▪ Politicians generally have a low opinion of the press, just as the press generally has a low opinion of lawmakers.
▪ She does not seem to have a high opinion of married life.
he's/she's bad news
if the worst comes to the worst
in a good/an ill/a bad humour
in a new/different/bad etc light
▪ But, like the National Health Service, education could be seen in a different light.
▪ He found there a country whose characteristics cast the philosophy of birth control in a new light.
▪ I've seen him at a distance, I've seen him in bad light.
▪ I think we both saw young Mr Venn in new lights, and they were neither favorable nor unfavorable, just new.
▪ It makes you think about those sullen high schoolers in a different light, see their lives along a time line.
▪ So let us fantasise, and see industry and agriculture in a new light.
▪ They literally saw the whole world in a new light.
▪ They perch too far away in bad light.
in good nick/in bad nick etc
in good/bad/poor etc shape
▪ But if I was in better shape, I'd be sitting up there.
▪ He could still be in good shape.
▪ He said Texpool is in good shape now.
▪ If only he could tell them he was all right, in good shape, considering ....
▪ This saw the band in good shape, retaining their traditions of twisted passions and bleak emotional narratives.
▪ This year, however, Dole appears in good shape in both locations.
▪ Uptown was still in bad shape.
▪ We found he was in good shape, but had no food in his intestines.
just as good/bad/big etc
▪ And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad.
▪ At home it was just as bad.
▪ I would say the top teams are just as good, but the lesser teams have caught up a little bit.
▪ It was just as good a place as any to get away from Julius for a while.
▪ Now Allan Ahlberg has written two more stories about the same skeletons, and they're just as good.
▪ Or something else, just as bad, could happen.
▪ People accuse the whites of being prejudiced, but blacks can be just as bad.
▪ Virginia says sending them to a sister training program it has established at nearby Mary Baldwin College is just as good.
make a good/bad fist of sth
none the worse/better etc (for sth)
▪ Although the animal glowed rosy-pink, it appeared none the worse for its ordeal.
▪ I recovered, my mouth none the worse for it, after all.
▪ Peter's little pet was clearly none the worse for its time in the underworld.
not half bad
▪ The pizza here isn't half bad.
not so big/good/bad etc
▪ But so happen, one little boy not so good.
▪ But it's not so bad down here.
▪ Compared to how I feel, how I look is not so bad.
▪ It is not so good at knowing how to do it.
▪ My tongue not so good anyway.
▪ She began to think that perhaps village life was not so bad.
▪ Some years it was bad, other years not so bad.
▪ When he was hot, he was hot, but for me the whole thing was not so good.
plumb the depths (of despair/misery/bad taste etc)
sb could do worse than do sth
▪ A woman could do worse than be a nurse.
▪ He could do worse than spend his evening keeping an eye on her.
▪ In groping for useful precedents, one could do worse than heed the tale of a man named Sherwood Rowland.
▪ The West could do worse than to base its policy towards the Middle East on that aspiration.
▪ You could do worse than take a leaf out of the health economists' book.
sb's bark is worse than their bite
sb's worst fears were realized
▪ My worst fears were realized when I saw the test questions.
▪ His worst fears were realized and he was arrested.
show sb in a good/bad etc light
take a turn for the worse
▪ Stock prices have taken a turn for the worse.
the best of a bad lot/bunch
the biggest/worst etc (sth) yet
▪ And the worst was yet to come.
▪ Her third night here and it had been the worst one yet.
▪ No, the worst ... Yet is she listening now?
▪ That was the worst task yet, as Psyche saw when she approached the waterfall.
▪ The decision opens the biggest policy rift yet between Holyrood and Westminster.
▪ The two have returned from a disastrous holiday in Greecebut the worst is yet to come.
the good old days/the bad old days
the worse for wear
▪ Architectural details there were few and those were the worse for wear.
▪ But I can see he's the worse for wear, the weathering the worker wreaks on himself.
▪ But I digress ... We are all somewhat the worse for wear after a long night in the hotel bar.
▪ Here I was, returning from a presidential mission, and plainly the worse for wear.
▪ It was a long evening, and he arrived home at two in the morning, much the worse for wear.
▪ John McGuire was slightly the worse for wear after his night out with his wife.
▪ They were a bit the worse for wear; the flat was not clean and was damp.
the worst
▪ Most of the girls were pretty mean, but Sabrina was the worst.
the worst of sth
▪ Against the far wall, shielded from the worst of the rain, were five bodies neatly laid out.
▪ And the worst of the caregivers were a disaster.
▪ And then there's you. ` ` Me? ` ` You're the worst of the lot.
▪ At this moment in history, however, the White House personifies the worst of political greed and excess.
▪ Black people, for example, need not imitate the worst of white competitive consumers.
▪ By the middle of the next afternoon, the worst of the headache was gone.
▪ On the eve of the council the worst of horrors was revealed.
▪ Would she ring the warning bell that cushioned the little fellow from the worst of it?
think the best/worst of sb
▪ Ellie's the type of person that always thinks the best of people.
▪ He thought the worst of Mitch and clearly thought that left to herself she would ring London at once.
▪ I was so ready to think the worst of him, she wailed inwardly.
▪ My immediate reaction, whether it be a man or a woman, is to think the worst of them.
▪ The prospect of Guy leaving, thinking the worst of her, was unbearable.
▪ Why should you think the worst of me?
▪ You always think the worst of me.
turn up like a bad penny
well-mannered/bad-mannered etc
with (a) good/bad grace
▪ Admit temporary defeat with good grace, retreat, reconsider and wait.
▪ But he tucked his manuscript away with a good grace.
▪ He threw himself with good grace into everything, even this.
▪ Life is very crude, and bonnie Princes Street a dream, but we soldier on with a good grace.
▪ Mr Macmillan was, according to colleagues, prepared to give way with good grace when he could not carry the Cabinet.
▪ Sport only thrives if both parties play by the rules, and accept the results with good grace.
▪ They accept his habitual interruptions with good grace.
▪ This must have been irksome for them, but Mrs Webster accepted it as her war work with good grace.
worse luck
▪ Bad luck for Venus, worse luck for the 12,000 fans, but hey, what can you do?
▪ I have to go to secretarial school, worse luck.
▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.
▪ You're a bad agent and you're worse luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
worse luck
▪ Bad luck for Venus, worse luck for the 12,000 fans, but hey, what can you do?
▪ I have to go to secretarial school, worse luck.
▪ Nearly all gone now, worse luck, and the guv'nor's arrived to read the riot act.
▪ You're a bad agent and you're worse luck.
▪ You go up there with the wrong attitude and come out with worse luck than you had before.
worst of all
▪ Mike's so boring, and worst of all he never stops talking.
▪ And worst of all, the Hare got rid Of far more than the Tortoise did.
▪ And worst of all, their services are no longer in demand.
▪ And, worst of all, you don't remember who you are.
▪ But worst of all were the comparisons being made between Monty Clift and Jekyll and Hyde.
▪ Or, worst of all, exploding at work?
▪ Perhaps worst of all, there are those stressful situations where one is accustomed to turn to tobacco for support.
▪ The twelfth labor was the worst of all.
▪ To abuse hospitality was the most horrid thing; worst of all.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ More of the bad of Washington sticks to you than the good.
III.adverb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ He needed a drink pretty bad.
▪ The front of the shop had been blown away, and the roof was badly damaged.
▪ Two of the passengers were killed, and the driver was badly injured.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ How bad do you want it?
▪ Like I hate it and I do bad at it.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Bad

Bad \Bad\ (b[a^]d), imp. of Bid. Bade. [Obs.]
--Dryden.

Bad

Bad \Bad\ (b[a^]d), a. [Compar. Worse (w[^u]s); superl. Worst (w[^u]st).] [Probably fr. AS. b[ae]ddel hermaphrodite; cf. b[ae]dling effeminate fellow.] Wanting good qualities, whether physical or moral; injurious, hurtful, inconvenient, offensive, painful, unfavorable, or defective, either physically or morally; evil; vicious; wicked; -- the opposite of good; as, a bad man; bad conduct; bad habits; bad soil; bad air; bad health; a bad crop; bad news.

Note: Sometimes used substantively.

The strong antipathy of good to bad.
--Pope.

Syn: Pernicious; deleterious; noxious; baneful; injurious; hurtful; evil; vile; wretched; corrupt; wicked; vicious; imperfect. [1913 Webster] ||

Bad

Bid \Bid\ (b[i^]d), v. t. [imp. Bade (b[a^]d), Bid, (Obs.) Bad; p. p. Bidden, Bid; p. pr. & vb. n. Bidding.] [OE. bidden, prop to ask, beg, AS. biddan; akin to OS. biddian, Icel. bi[eth]ja, OHG. bittan, G. bitten, to pray, ask, request, and E. bead, also perh. to Gr. teiqein to persuade, L. fidere to trust, E. faith, and bide. But this word was early confused with OE. beden, beoden, AS. be['o]dan, to offer, command; akin to Icel. bj[=o][eth]a, Goth. biudan (in comp.), OHG. biotan to command, bid, G. bieten, D. bieden, to offer, also to Gr. pynqa`nesqai to learn by inquiry, Skr. budh to be awake, to heed, present OSlav. bud[=e]ti to be awake, E. bode, v. The word now has the form of OE. bidden to ask, but the meaning of OE. beden to command, except in ``to bid beads.'' [root]30.]

  1. To make an offer of; to propose. Specifically : To offer to pay ( a certain price, as for a thing put up at auction), or to take (a certain price, as for work to be done under a contract).

  2. To offer in words; to declare, as a wish, a greeting, a threat, or defiance, etc.; as, to bid one welcome; to bid good morning, farewell, etc.

    Neither bid him God speed.
    --2. John 10.

    He bids defiance to the gaping crowd.
    --Granrille.

  3. To proclaim; to declare publicly; to make known. [Mostly obs.] ``Our banns thrice bid !''
    --Gay.

  4. To order; to direct; to enjoin; to command.

    That Power who bids the ocean ebb and flow.
    --Pope

    Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee.
    --Matt. xiv. 28

    I was bid to pick up shells.
    --D. Jerrold.

  5. To invite; to call in; to request to come.

    As many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
    --Matt. xxii. 9

    To bid beads, to pray with beads, as the Roman Catholics; to distinguish each bead by a prayer. [Obs.]

    To bid defiance to, to defy openly; to brave.

    To bid fair, to offer a good prospect; to make fair promise; to seem likely.

    Syn: To offer; proffer; tender; propose; order; command; direct; charge; enjoin.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
bad

c.1200, "inferior in quality;" early 13c., "wicked, evil, vicious," a mystery word with no apparent relatives in other languages.* Possibly from Old English derogatory term bæddel and its diminutive bædling "effeminate man, hermaphrodite, pederast," probably related to bædan "to defile." A rare word before 1400, and evil was more common in this sense until c.1700. Meaning "uncomfortable, sorry" is 1839, American English colloquial.\n

\nComparable words in the other Indo-European languages tend to have grown from descriptions of specific qualities, such as "ugly," "defective," "weak," "faithless," "impudent," "crooked," "filthy" (such as Greek kakos, probably from the word for "excrement;" Russian plochoj, related to Old Church Slavonic plachu "wavering, timid;" Persian gast, Old Persian gasta-, related to gand "stench;" German schlecht, originally "level, straight, smooth," whence "simple, ordinary," then "bad").\n

\nComparative and superlative forms badder, baddest were common 14c.-18c. and used as recently as Defoe (but not by Shakespeare), but yielded to comparative worse and superlative worst (which had belonged to evil and ill).\n

\nAs a noun, late 14c., "evil, wickedness." In U.S. place names, sometimes translating native terms meaning "supernaturally dangerous." Ironic use as a word of approval is said to be at least since 1890s orally, originally in Black English, emerging in print 1928 in a jazz context. It might have emerged from the ambivalence of expressions like bad nigger, used as a term of reproach by whites, but among blacks sometimes representing one who stood up to injustice, but in the U.S. West bad man also had a certain ambivalence:\n\nThese are the men who do most of the killing in frontier communities, yet it is a noteworthy fact that the men who are killed generally deserve their fate.

[Farmer & Henley]

\n*Farsi has bad in more or less the same sense as the English word, but this is regarded by linguists as a coincidence. The forms of the words diverge as they are traced back in time (Farsi bad comes from Middle Persian vat), and such accidental convergences exist across many languages, given the vast number of words in each and the limited range of sounds humans can make to signify them. Among other coincidental matches with English are Korean mani "many," Chinese pei "pay," Nahuatl (Aztecan) huel "well," Maya hol "hole."
Wiktionary
bad

Etymology 1

  1. Not good; unfavorable; negative. adv. (context now colloquial English) badly. n. (context slang English) error, mistake Etymology 2

    a. (rfm-sense) (context slang English) fantastic. Etymology 3

    v

  2. (context archaic English) (form of Alternative past tense bid English). See (l en bade '''bade'''). Etymology 4

    vb. (context British dialect transitive English) To shell (a walnut).

WordNet
bad
  1. n. that which is below standard or expectations as of ethics or decency; "take the bad with the good" [syn: badness] [ant: good, good]

  2. [also: worst, worse]

bad
  1. adv. with great intensity (`bad' is a nonstandard variant for `badly'); "the injury hurt badly"; "the buildings were badly shaken"; "it hurts bad"; "we need water bad" [syn: badly]

  2. very much; strongly; "I wanted it badly enough to work hard for it"; "the cables had sagged badly"; "they were badly in need of help"; "he wants a bicycle so bad he can taste it" [syn: badly]

  3. [also: worst, worse]

bad
  1. adj. having undesirable or negative qualities; "a bad report card"; "his sloppy appearance made a bad impression"; "a bad little boy"; "clothes in bad shape"; "a bad cut"; "bad luck"; "the news was very bad"; "the reviews were bad"; "the pay is bad"; "it was a bad light for reading"; "the movie was a bad choice" [ant: good]

  2. very intense; "a bad headache"; "in a big rage"; "had a big (or bad) shock"; "a bad earthquake"; "a bad storm" [syn: big]

  3. feeling physical discomfort or pain (`tough' is occasionally used colloquially for `bad'); "my throat feels bad"; "she felt bad all over"; "he was feeling tough after a restless night" [syn: tough]

  4. (of foodstuffs) not in an edible or usable condition; "bad meat"; "a refrigerator full of spoilt food" [syn: spoiled, spoilt]

  5. not capable of being collected; "a bad (or uncollectible) debt" [syn: uncollectible]

  6. below average in quality or performance; "a bad chess player"; "a bad recital"

  7. nonstandard; "so-called bad grammar"

  8. not financially safe or secure; "a bad investment"; "high risk investments"; "anything that promises to pay too much can't help being risky"; "speculative business enterprises" [syn: insecure, risky, high-risk, speculative]

  9. physically unsound or diseased; "has a bad back"; "a bad heart"; "bad teeth"; "an unsound limb"; "unsound teeth" [syn: unfit, unsound]

  10. capable of harming; "bad habits"; "bad air"; "smoking is bad for you"

  11. keenly sorry or regretful; "felt bad about letting the team down"; "was sorry that she had treated him so badly"; "felt bad about breaking the vase" [syn: sorry]

  12. characterized by wickedness or immorality; "led a very bad life" [syn: immoral]

  13. reproduced fraudulently; "like a bad penny..."; "a forged twenty dollar bill" [syn: forged]

  14. not working properly; "a bad telephone connection"; "a defective appliance" [syn: defective]

  15. [also: worst, worse]

Gazetteer
Wikipedia
Bad (album)

Bad is the seventh studio album by American singer Michael Jackson. It is his third studio album released through Epic Records. It was released on August 31, 1987, nearly five years after Jackson's previous studio album, Thriller. As of 2012 Bad itself has sold between 30 and 45 million copies worldwide, was certified 9 times Platinum in the United States alone, and has been cited as one of the 30 best-selling albums of all time. The album produced a record five Billboard Hot 100 number one singles, the first of two albums to do so, the second being Katy Perry's 2010 album Teenage Dream.

Bad was recorded during the first half of 1987. The lyrical themes on the record relate to media bias, paranoia, racial profiling, romance, self-improvement and world peace. The album is widely regarded as having cemented Jackson's status as one of the most successful artists of the 1980s, as well as enhancing his solo career and being one of the best musical projects of his career. Nine of the eleven songs on Bad were released as singles; one was a promotional single and another was released outside of the United States and Canada. Five of the singles hit number one in the United States, while a sixth charted within the top ten, and a seventh charted within the top twenty on the Hot 100. Bad peaked at number one in thirteen countries and charted within the top twenty in other territories. The only songs on the album which were not released as a single were "Speed Demon" and "Just Good Friends", the latter being the only song on the album to also not have a music video accompanying it.

Bad saw Jackson exercise even more artistic freedom than he did with his two previous Epic releases ( Off the Wall and Thriller). On Bad, Jackson composed nine of the album's eleven tracks and received co-producer credit for the entire album. The album continued Jackson's commercial success in the late 1980s and garnered six Grammy Award nominations, winning two. Aside from commercial success, the album also received critical acclaim from contemporary critics. Bad was ranked number 43 in the 100 Greatest Albums of All Time of the MTV Generation in 2009 by VH1 and number 202 in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The album marked the final collaboration between Jackson and producer Quincy Jones.

Bad

Bad or BAD may refer to: Emily

Bad (2007 film)

Bad, stylized as bAd, is a 2007 drama film directed and written by Vincenzo Giammanco about a young boy who is dyslexic.

John Reed (Remy Thorne) is in the fifth grade and is failing in school as "his teacher thinks that he's just too lazy to study, and the local bully takes every opportunity to humiliate him." After the intervention of his mother, she and John work to overcome the difficulties he faces due to dyslexia.

Bad (Wale song)

"Bad" is a song by American hip hop recording artist Wale. It was released on February 5, 2013, as the first single from his third studio album The Gifted (2013). The song, produced by Kelson Camp, features a guest appearance from Tiara Thomas. "Bad" has so far peaked at number 21 on the US Billboard Hot 100, making it Wale's second top 40 entry after " Lotus Flower Bomb", and becoming his highest-charting single as a lead artist. It also became Thomas' first top 40 entry.

Bad (Michael Jackson song)

"Bad" is a song by an American singer Michael Jackson. "Bad" was released by Epic Records on September 7, 1987, as the second single from Jackson's third major-label and seventh studio album of the same name. The song was written and composed by Jackson and co-produced by Quincy Jones and Jackson. Jackson stated that the song was influenced by a real-life story he had read about.

"Bad" was well received by contemporary music critics, with some critics noting that "Bad" helped Jackson's image become edgier during the Bad-era. The song peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained at the top position of the chart for two weeks, becoming Jackson's Bad album's second number one single, and Jackson's eighth number one entry on the chart. Internationally, the song was also commercially successful, charting within the top ten in eleven countries as well as charting within the top five in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Norwegian, Switzerland and Swedish charts. The song peaked at number one on the Netherlands and European charts.

The full version of the music video for "Bad", released in August 1987, and broadcast as a CBS prime time special, was directed entirely by Martin Scorsese and co-starred Wesley Snipes in one of his first appearances prior to being discovered as an actor. The video portrays Michael Jackson and various backup dancers shown performing complex choreography in a subway station. "Bad" has been covered and parodied by many different artists since its release and has become a song used frequently in tributes to Jackson after his death in June 2009.

The song is featured in the 2010 animated film Megamind. It is also featured in the first theatrical trailer for the 2016 animated film The Angry Birds Movie.

Bad (economics)

An economic bad is the opposite of an economic good. A "bad" is anything with a negative value to the consumer, or a negative price in the marketplace. Refuse is an example of a bad.

A bad is a physical object that lowers a consumer's level of happiness, or stated alternately, a bad is an object whose consumption or presence lowers the utility of the consumer.

With normal goods, a two-party transaction results in the exchange of money for some object, as when money is exchanged for a car. With a bad, however, both money and the object in question go the same direction, as when a household gives up both money and garbage to a waste collector being compensated to take the garbage. In this way, garbage has a negative price; the waste collector is receiving both garbage and money and thus is paying a negative amount for the garbage.

Goodness and badness are an inherently subjective declaration, however. As an example: two diners at a restaurant discover that the " secret ingredient" in the house specialty is peanuts. One of the diners is a peanut-lover, and the other is allergic to peanuts. In this case, peanuts are, in the same time and in the same place, both a good and a bad in economic terms.

Additionally, a good consumed by the same individual can turn into a bad over time, and vice versa; the nicotine from cigarettes may give a smoker a feeling of relieved anxiety and reduced stress. Continuing, long-term consumption of cigarettes, however, may have serious adverse effects on a smoker's health, thus turning the utility of cigarettes into the negative. On the other hand, some forms of medical treatment or side effects of medication may seem rather unpleasant to a patient at the time of treatment, but will greatly improve their health and well-being in the long run.

Bad (tour)

Bad was the first solo concert tour by American recording artist Michael Jackson, launched in support of his seventh studio album Bad (1987). Sponsored by Pepsi and spanning 16 months, the tour included 123 concerts to 4.4 million fans across 15 countries making it the second highest grossing tour of 1988. When the tour concluded it grossed a total of $125 million, adding two new entries in the Guinness World Records for the largest grossing tour in history and the tour with the largest attended audience. In April 1989, the tour was nominated for "Tour of the Year 1988" at the inaugural International Rock Awards.

Bad (U2 song)

"Bad" is a song by rock band U2 and the seventh track from their 1984 album, The Unforgettable Fire. A song about heroin addiction, it is considered a fan favourite, and is one of U2's most frequently performed songs in concert.

A performance of the song at 1985's Live Aid was a career breakthrough for the band.

The live version included as the opening track of the Wide Awake in America EP is frequently chosen for airplay by radio DJs ahead of the studio version. The song is featured on the trailer of Brothers and in the opening and closing sequences of Taking Lives.

Bad (cuneiform)

The cuneiform bad, bat, be, etc. sign is a common multi-use sign in the mid 14th-century BC Amarna letters, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. In the Epic it also has 5 sumerogram uses (capital letter ( majuscule)). From Giorgio Buccellati (Buccellati 1979) 'comparative graphemic analysis' (about 360 cuneiform signs, nos. 1 through no. 598E), of 5 categories of letters, the usage numbers of the bad sign are as follows: Old Babylonian Royal letters (71), OB non-Royal letters (392), Mari letters (2108), Amarna letters (334), Ugarit letters (39).

The following linguistic elements are used for the bad sign in the 12 chapter (Tablets I-Tablet XII) Epic of Gilgamesh:

bad (not in Epic) bat be mid mit sun til ziz

sumerograms:

BE IDIM TIL ÚŠ ZIZ

The following usage numbers for the linguistic elements of sign bad in the Epic are as follows: bad, (0 times), bat, (61), be, (16), mid, (7), mit, (8), sun, (1), til, (11), ziz, (8), BE, (2), IDIM, (2), TIL, (1), ÚŠ, (2), ZIZ, (1).

Instead of a large horizontal, as seen in the (digitized form, but one type of "bad") , the sign is seen in the Amarna letters as composed of two opposite facing (triangles), the wedges. It can be seen here 1, Amarna letter EA 153-(lines 153:4, 11), for "King-Lord-mine", " LUGAL, Be- li- ia", or Be- lí- ia", where "bēlu" is Akkadian for "lord".

Bad (David Guetta and Showtek song)

"Bad" (also stylised as BAD!) is a song by French house music producer and disc jockey (DJ) David Guetta and Dutch production duo Showtek, featuring vocals from Australian singer Vassy. It was released on 17 March 2014 as the second single from Guetta's studio album, Listen. It was written and produced by Guetta, Showtek, Sultan & Ned Shepard, and Manuel Reuter and it was co-written by Giorgio Tuinfort, Ossama Al Sarraf, Vassy, and Nick Turpin. The song entered and peaked on the UK Singles Chart at number 22. This track has since topped the chart in Finland and Norway. The song, which features vocals from Vassy, features her with an Auto-Tuned voice; reviews were critical of the effects applied to the vocals.

Usage examples of "bad".

There were few officers aboard the Endymion who turned a blind eye, but when it came to a zealous pursuit of duty, the first lieutenant was the worst.

It was useless to take them to task, to inform them that this behaviour instead of easing their plight only brought out the worst in their superiors and made them the butt of every perceived mistake aboard ship.

It would have been a bad notion to put him aboard one of those frigates.

Her bare foot dragged across it, abrading the skin and producing a burning pain that somehow seemed far worse than any of the aches and stings emanating from the other injuries Mrs.

Good or bad, saint or killer, Abraxas had taken their minds and swallowed them whole.

StregaSchloss on the end of a moth-eaten damask curtain was a bad idea, or maybe the sight of the Borgia money going to such an undeserving home had simply robbed the estate lawyer of the will to live, but miraculously his abseiling suicide attempt didnt kill him.

And to rage was added fear: fear that once on her own she might complain that he had sexually abused her as a child, and, worse still, that she might voice her suspicions about the fate of some of the young women she had seen in Cromwell Street.

Baron was always very respectful to Mr Aching since Granny had died two years ago, calling him the finest shepherd in these hills, and was generally held by the people in the village to be not too bad these days.

Azareel limping, but supporting Acies who seemed to have had a bad time of it.

It still reverberated, though Ilna had noticed that the acoustics of this great square room were wretchedly bad.

Malipiero would often inquire from me what advantages were accruing to me from the welcome I received at the hands of the respectable ladies I had become acquainted with at his house, taking care to tell me, before I could have time to answer, that they were all endowed with the greatest virtue, and that I would give everybody a bad opinion of myself, if I ever breathed one word of disparagement to the high reputation they all enjoyed.

Even if the acriflavine treatment sounded worse than the disease it was supposed to help, at least it would be over pretty soon.

There was a legal adage that hard cases made for bad law, but the books could not anticipate all the things that people did.

If Addis spoke lightly of your role, it was only to permit you to refuse with no embarrassment, since in failure your fate will be worse than his.

I was struck by the dread in her voice, which seemed to be more fear of Aden himself than a reluctance to share the bad news.