The Collaborative International Dictionary
Malefaction \Mal`e*fac"tion\, n. [See Malefactor.]
A crime; an offense; an evil deed. [R.]
--Shak.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., from Medieval Latin malefactionem (nominative malefactio), noun of action from past participle stem of malefacere (see malefactor).
Wiktionary
n. (context obsolete English) A crime
Usage examples of "malefaction".
Even his own daughter, whose sole malefaction had been a human compassion.
God only knew what malefaction, the pain from his damaged back tooth flared up alarmingly.
Stewart had casually encountered him, a post rider, in a wayside inn, and was being regaled with one more malefaction to add to the already heavy load on his conscience.
And not even the malefaction in his heart could deter the spark of desire that instantly sprang to life in his groin.
The chances were even that the wily old killer would sell him to the constables the first chance he got if he thought he could somehow avoid being confronted with his own malefactions, but Kaspar had to take risks at this point.
She suppressed a sudden unfair memory of the way Jack had been accustomed to deal with the malefactions of his young.
His thoughts flashed instantly to the Hindu, Rahman Singh, as if that visitor from the East possessed an eye of evil that could have delivered the malefactions of a dead maharajah.
Those agents gave him credence, because they had already learned of a pamphlet in which the Anglican Church had published the malefactions of a Spanish priest—and in Madrid, when the news reached there, they arrested the prelate to whom Ferrante had attribÂuted his treason, and now the man was awaiting death in the dungeons of the Inquisition.
There wasn't anything in any of those hypothetical malefactions that warranted that.