How to Use malicious in a Sentence

malicious

adjective
  • This has led to the spread of extreme and malicious views.
    — Kristina Libby, Popular Mechanics, 6 Aug. 2019
  • The malicious program’s name comes from the name of this file.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 13 Sep. 2024
  • That was a malicious rumor born in the fever swamps of the message board 4chan.
    — Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, 25 May 2022
  • Users who click on the link open the malicious page or resource rather than the one that appears to be safe.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 16 Sep. 2019
  • But the ghost of Joyce is the malicious presence and warns Dawn that Buffy will betray her.
    — Fran Hoepfner, Vulture, 26 Feb. 2025
  • The malicious account on X bore the handle @Joseph_Gordon16.
    — Nicola Naber, Washington Post, 9 Oct. 2023
  • And some of the malicious accounts may have Russian ties.
    — Rob Wile, miamiherald, 23 Mar. 2018
  • Did Lee seem to be a more malicious person behind the wheel?
    — Pat Padua, Washington Post, 24 Apr. 2023
  • The victim enters a game, playing one of the malicious game modes.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 9 Feb. 2023
  • The malicious code was emailed to its victims inside a zip file.
    — Leah Becerra, kansascity.com, 16 May 2017
  • Take heed to not assume the reason for a lack of response is malicious.
    — David Villa, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023
  • On the one hand, there is the man in the office: grotesque, incoherent, malicious, dumb.
    — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 4 Aug. 2020
  • Her plea led to the dismissal of a charge of malicious punishment of a child, online court records say.
    — Washington Post, 29 Mar. 2018
  • This wouldn’t even require FaceApp to be a malicious actor; they could be hacked.
    — Sidney Fussell, The Atlantic, 19 July 2019
  • There is the chance that a malicious code leverages the OTA and gets downloaded and installed.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 19 Oct. 2021
  • The Happ slide this weekend didn't appear to have malicious intent, and he was still called out.
    — The Tylt, AL.com, 16 May 2017
  • Any offer of these will lead to him doing more malicious and awful things around the world.
    — Bill Browder, Time, 12 July 2018
  • Her plea led to the dismissal of a charge of malicious punishment of a child, according to court records.
    — Tom James, The Seattle Times, 30 Mar. 2018
  • The attack on Sessions was malicious and not Trump's fault.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 10 Feb. 2018
  • The roughing the passer on Dorlus wasn’t malicious but the fan base of the quarterback will want the call and the fan base of the defender will hate it.
    — oregonlive, 26 Sep. 2022
  • For this reason, the cloud is a goldmine for malicious actors.
    — Kristen Lynch, The Arizona Republic, 8 Aug. 2023
  • All of that was to help the agency spread a masterwork of malicious software that the GRU had written.
    — NBC News, 22 July 2021
  • Some of these calls could be from pranksters, while others are from malicious actors.
    — Toby Grey, BGR, 21 Sep. 2022
  • Her plea also led to the dismissal of a charge of malicious punishment of a child, online court records say.
    — Paul Elias and Steven Dubois, chicagotribune.com, 28 Mar. 2018
  • Google removed all the malicious apps in question, a spokesperson said.
    — Time, 7 Oct. 2022
  • There were pleas to be seen and then the purposeful, often malicious refusals to see.
    — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 7 Oct. 2024
  • This includes scams, malicious software, and ATM skimmers, to name just a few threats.
    — Marc Saltzman, USA TODAY, 18 Mar. 2023
  • Crawford was also found guilty of three counts of arson and one count of malicious burning in the trial.
    — Meredith Deliso, ABC News, 27 June 2023
  • The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious apps is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices.
    — Kurt Knutsson, Cyberguy Report, Fox News, 11 Mar. 2025
  • Github was the platform primarily used to host the malicious payload stages, but Discord and Dropbox were also used.
    — Dan Goodin, Ars Technica, 7 Mar. 2025

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

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