pure evil

English

Etymology

Has been rising in usage from other phrases using this sense of pure since around the 1950s. Has been rising exponentially as a set phrase since the 1990s.

Noun

pure evil (uncountable)

1. (set phrase) Absolute evil; that has no sense of morality or mercy at all.

   Antonym: pure good

   • 2022 May 26, Peter Bradshaw, “Pacifiction review – trouble in paradise, in apocalyptic Tahitian mystery”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     I can only say I was captivated by the film and its stealthy evocation of pure evil.

Adjective

pure evil (not comparable)

1. (set phrase) Absolutely evil; having no sense of morality or mercy whatsoever.

   Antonym: pure good

   • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 114:

     This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.