malignancy

EnglishEdit

malignant +‎ -cy or malign +‎ -ancy

malignancy (countable and uncountable, plural malignancies)

The state of being malignant or diseased.
A malignant cancer; specifically, any neoplasm that is invasive or otherwise not benign.
That which is malign; evil, depravity, malevolence.
- c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene i]:
  The malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper yours.
- 1902, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles‎^[1]:
  A cold wind swept down from it and set us shivering. Somewhere there, on that desolate plain, was lurking this fiendish man, hiding in a burrow like a wild beast, his heart full of malignancy against the whole race which had cast him out.

state of being malignant

malignant cancer

desire to harm others