malengine

English

Etymology

From Middle English male engyn, male engyne, from Anglo-Norman mal engin, Middle French mal engin, from mal (“bad, evil”) + engin (“ruse; trickery; deception”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /malˈɛndʒɪn/

Noun

malengine (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Evil intent, bad intention; fraud, deceit.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 406:

     But the chaſte damzell, that had neuer priefe / Of ſuch malengine and fine forgerye, / Did eaſely beleeue her ſtrong extremitye.

   • 1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Cavvses that hitherto have Hindred it; republished as Will Taliaferro Hale, editor, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England (Yale Studies in English; LIV), New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1916, →OCLC, 1st book, page 11:

     […] for when the Protectors Brother, Lord Sudley, the Admirall through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life, no man could bee found fitter than Bishop Latimer […] to divulge in his Sermon the forged Accusations laid to his charge […].

Anagrams

• Mengelian, enameling, meningeal