Word which means good and bad

The words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are simple ways of expressing how we feel about something. However, they’re also overused, which means they can lack impact. So to make your writing more powerful and descriptive, you might need a few of the synonyms for ‘good’ and ‘bad’ detailed below.

Synonyms for ‘Good’

‘Good’ is a word with many uses, including as a noun and an adjective. We’ll focus on the adjectival uses here, where its basic meaning is ‘desirable’ or ‘of a high standard’. However, even then ‘good’ has several uses, so the best alternative will depend on what you are trying to say. Some common senses of ‘good’ and suitable synonyms can be found below, for example:

As the table above shows, the way to pick a ‘good’ (i.e. acceptable) synonym is to know what you are trying to say. This will often lead you to a more descriptive alternative. It is therefore important to check the definition of synonyms for ‘good’ to make sure they fit the situations.

Synonyms for ‘Bad’

We say something is ‘bad’ to express a negative opinion. It is thus the opposite of good in all of its senses. And as with ‘good’, we have several options for how to use this word, including:

There are other uses of ‘bad’ not described here, such as when we describe an injured body part (e.g. a ‘bad back’) or rotten food (e.g. ‘bad meat’). And as with ‘good’ above, this range of meanings shows that it’s important to check the definition of synonyms for ‘bad’ before you use them.

‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ in Academic Writing

It’s fine to use words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in academic writing, but they’re not usually enough by themselves. This is because they’re evaluative rather than descriptive. For example, if we were writing about management techniques, we might say that ‘unpaid overtime is bad for staff morale’. That is an evaluation because we say it is ‘bad’. But to demonstrate our understanding, we’d also need to explain why it is bad and how we reached that conclusion.

The answer here, then, is to remember that academic writing involves explaining our judgements. And the same applies to using words like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in other forms of critical writing.

Q: I understand the difference between “feel bad” and “feel badly,” but “love so bad”? Wouldn’t that be best stated as “love so badly”? Perhaps I hear the wrong phrase so often that my mind is muddled.

A: In slang usage, the adjective “bad” means “good,” as we mentioned in a post we wrote some time ago about the influence of African-American slang on English.

The surprising thing about this use of “bad”—apart from the reversed meaning—is that it’s not recent. It dates back to the 19th century, as we’ll explain later.

But in an expression like “love so bad,” the word is an adverb, not an adjective. It’s being used as an intensifier—that is, to intensify the verb it modifies—with the result that “so bad” means “so greatly” or “so much.”

We know what you’re thinking—“bad” as an adverb? Is that legal?

Well, here’s another surprise. The adverb “bad” isn’t new either. It’s been around since the 16th century, according to citations in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In the earliest adverbial uses, “bad” wasn’t an intensifier. It was used more literally and meant “badly” or “not well.”

The OED’s earliest example is from George Turberville’s The Booke of Faulconrie or Hauking (1575): “He … frames his moode, according as his hawke doth well or bad.”

But by the latter half of the 1600s, “bad” was being used intensively, to emphasize the preceding verb, in the same way that we use “much.”

This 17th-century example is from Joseph Glanvill’s Saducismus Triumphatus, a book on witches and apparitions that was written sometime before 1680: “Haunted almost as bad as Mr. Mompesson’s house.”

In the 18th century, Joseph Bellamy wrote in True Religion Delineated (1750): “We hate him so bad, that we cannot find it in our Hearts to love him.”

And in the 19th century, John Russell Bartlett included in his Dictionary of Americanisms (1859) the expression “I want to see him bad.”

The OED also includes a citation from a British novel, Under the Chilterns (1895), written under the pen name Rosemary: “Las’ week there was a job doin’ up at the squire’s, an’ I wanted to go bad.”

Today, in the OED’s estimation, this sense of “bad” as an intensifier is colloquial and nonstandard, and it appears “chiefly” in North American usage. American language authorities, however, aren’t as critical.

As we’ve written before on the blog, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage maintains that the adverb “bad” is interchangeable with “badly” after the verbs “want” and “need.”

Similarly, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) has an entry for the adverb “bad” defined as “badly,” and includes the example “doesn’t want it bad enough.” This dictionary treats the usage as standard English.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.) doesn’t go quite that far. It says the adverbial use of “bad” as in “his tooth ached so bad” is “common in informal speech but is widely regarded as unacceptable in formal writing.”

Although the OED considers it nonstandard to use “bad” as an intensifier meaning “greatly” or “very much,” it accepts without reservation the use of “badly” in this way.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the slang use of the adjective “bad.” As we mentioned above, the use of “bad” to mean “good” dates back to the 19th century.

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang says that, especially in African-American English, “bad” is used to mean “wonderful; deeply satisfying; stunningly attractive or stylish; sexy.”

The dictionary’s earliest reference is from George Ade’s Pink Marsh (1897): “She sutny fix up a pohk chop ’at’s bad to eat.” (The book is a collection of sketches about a fictional black shoe-shine man named William Pinckney Marsh, a k a Pink.)

Random House also cites this line from a 1927 review in Variety: “In Duke Ellington’s dance band Harlem has reclaimed its own. … Ellington’s jazzique is just too bad.”

The OED also includes this usage, which it labels as slang. Here “bad” is used, the dictionary says, “as a general term of approbation” and means “good, excellent, impressive; esp. stylish or attractive.”

Oxford’s citations begin with George Ade in 1897 and continue into the present day.

Among them are this definition of “bad” in Leonard Feather’s The Encyclopedia of Jazz (1955): “Bad, adj. Good. (This reverse adjectival procedure is commonly used to describe a performance.)”

The OED also includes this 1980 example, from an article in Time magazine: “Bad as the best and as cool as they come, Smokey is remarkably low key for a soul master.”

But “bad” was used further back in a slightly different and possibly unrelated slang sense.

Both Oxford and Random House have entries for “bad” meaning “formidable” and hence “formidably skilled,” with examples dating from the 1840s and ’50s.

We find some of these early citations ambiguous; the speaker’s meaning isn’t always clear-cut. As far as we can tell, the first example in which this “badness” is clearly viewed with admiration appeared in the 1870s.

Random House gives an example from The Colored Cadet at West Point (1878), an autobiography by Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of the U.S. Military Academy.

In this passage, Flipper quotes from a newspaper article that mocked his post-graduation homecoming in 1877:

“A darkey would approach the young man, cautiously, feel of his buttons and clothes, and enthusiastically remark: ‘Bad man wid de gub-ment strops on!’ ” (The newspaper article included this among “expressions of admiration.”)

American Heritage has an interesting note on the positive uses of “bad,” which the dictionary says “illustrate a favorite creative device of informal and slang language—using a word to mean the opposite of what it ‘really’ means.”

“This is by no means uncommon; people use words sarcastically to mean the opposite of their actual meanings on a daily basis,” the dictionary says.

“What is more unusual is for such a usage to be generally accepted within a larger community,” the note continues. “Perhaps when the concepts are as basic as ‘good’ and ‘bad’ this general acceptance is made easier.”

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Add to saved lessons

| Oct 18, 2021Oct 28, 2022

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson students discover different meanings as well as expressions with good and bad. They also get an opportunity to put them into practice while reacting to some real-life situations.

B2 / Upper Intermediate45 minStandard LessonFree / Premium Plan

WARM-UP & EXPRESSIONS WITH GOOD AND BAD

The lesson starts with a quick warm-up. Students read five pairs of expressions with good and bad and have to complete them with the missing prepositions (the same for each pair). Then, they choose one situation from each pair and discuss them. To create students’ interest in the next task, you could elicit from them what parts of speech the words good and bad could be and get them to revise the expressions they already know. Students then focus on five different sentences with good and bad and analyse what the two words mean in them and what parts of speech they are. Engaging in another discussion helps students consolidate the new expressions. The following task consists of nine gapped dialogues. First, students have to complete the gaps in the underlined expressions with the words good or bad and then, figure out their meanings (e.g. so far so good, that’s a good one, too bad).

WRITTEN & ORAL PRACTICE

The second part of the lesson is all about putting the underlined expressions with good and bad into practice. Students start with a writing task and create two more dialogues with the chosen expressions from the previous exercise. Then, they engage in a speaking game. In turns, they choose a card which presents a real-life situation (e.g. You see the most amazing car in the world) and have to react to it using one of the expressions with good or bad learnt earlier. We prepared fifteen different situations for teachers to use in this final speaking activity.

WORKSHEETS

Pros and cons are part of life. Anything—from the most abstract concept to the tiniest little action—has its upsides, downsides, advantages, and disadvantages.

Over time, words have evolved to take on two forms, known as the positive and negative connotations of words. The dictionary is what makes this possible.

The words “pros” and “cons” are commonly used to describe the positive and negative features or aspects.

For example, the pros of reading may be the enjoyment one gets from it and the opportunity to gain knowledge. The cons may include finding a quiet place to read.

“The pros of living in Japan include the beautiful scenery, great food, and friendly people,” while the cons are the negative (e.g., “the cons of living in Tokyo are the high prices, loud traffic, and endless rain”).

But there is more to them. It is common to over-emphasize the positive aspects of something or someone while under-emphasizing the negative side. This leads us to believe that a product has no flaws or fewer than it does.

Many people assume that positive and negative things are opposites. If you consider something like electricity, it makes sense that the positive represents one half of the source, while the negative is the other half.

However, these concepts are not so cut-and-dry when applied to many situations in life. Some may assume that poverty and wealth have an inverse relationship, but that isn’t true in numerous instances.

You may also consider ethics to be a sort of dichotomy: black or white; right or wrong; good or bad, but this too isn’t always the case.

When it comes to pros and cons, there is no “better” or “worse” side here—only different advantages and disadvantages to consider and weigh.

“Pros” and “Cons” Meaning

Many people use the words “pros” and “cons” interchangeably. And while they are closely associated with one another, they have different meanings.

If you’re reading this phrase for the first time, you can read more about it here. The word was derived from the Latin expression “pro et contra,” as “pro” means for or on the side, and “con” means against.

• Usage Example: “I wanted to buy an electric car, but after weighing up the pros and cons, I decided to stick with petrol.”

By considering the advantages and disadvantages of a particular thing, we can predict its impact on the future. So, its usage is more practical than theoretical.

This phrase presents both sides of an argument or discussion in one short phrase.

What are “advantages” and “disadvantages”?

The advantages and disadvantages of something are its positive and negative aspects of the good and bad things.

For example:

What is the meaning of “good” or “bad”?

If someone asks you whether something is good or bad, that is an open question because we all have our own opinions and can consider something good for us and bad for others.

For example:

However, one thing that, I think, would apply in most cases is understanding who decides whether something is good or bad.

For example:

“Good” or “bad” synonyms

“Good” has two meanings, depending on the context. The first is “perfect” or “on-point”, usually said after a performance. The second is “very well” or “thoroughly.”

The most important thing to remember when trying to understand how to use “good” and “well” is that “good” is an adjective, and “well” is an adverb.

“Good” Example:

The students did a good job on their tests.

The synonym for the word “bad” is “terrible”.

When it is not a good thing, it can be:

Is there a difference between “good” and “bad”?

I’ve heard people say “good” and “bad” with the same tone of voice, but it doesn’t mean the same thing. The words are associated with two entirely different meanings.

So, why is this? Is there really a difference between “good” and “bad” meanings? I think so. The difference has to do with how we associate those words with our lives.

Slang words can take on different meanings depending on the situation and the people using them. Slang words like “lit” and “bad” are examples of slang. They change their meaning based on who is listening and how they are used.

You shouldn’t assume you know what someone means when they say something like “bad” or “nice,” because they could be using them in a wholly different way than you expect.

There are two types of words:

• Dictionary words, i.e., words that have a meaning in a dictionary or lexicon of the target language, and
• Non-dictionary words, i.e., words that do not have a meaning in a dictionary or lexicon of the target language.

(Note that the distinction is between “words” and “meanings”, not “words” and “uses”).

The expression “pros and cons” is a short-handed way of saying “the positive and negative aspects [of something].”

In other words, pros (short for “prosperities”) refer to the positive aspects of what you’re talking about, while cons (short for “considerations”) refer to the negative aspects.

Examples:

Other samples:

Conclusion

Pro and con are two sides of the same coin.

Learn to identify the pros and cons of a situation or a proposal, and you will have taken the first step towards a balanced, logical view. ​

Look up pros and cons in any dictionary, and the result will be essentially the same. To summarize, we can say that a pro is a positive feature of something, and a con is a negative. They are essential “pro” arguments for and “con” arguments against something or some situation.

The study of pros and cons will help you develop a profound understanding of the issue, whether it’s about your career, society, or the world around you.

Explanations
> Decisions > Good and Bad

Definition | Judgment
and decision | Discussion | So what

What, exactly is good and bad? We say things are good and bad but how do we
decide this?

Definition

‘Good’ has many dictionary definitions such as ‘Having desirable or positive
qualities especially those suitable for a thing specified’ or ‘Deserving of
esteem and respect’, which can be summarized into two categories:

1. Fit for purpose

2. Morally admirable

Bad is defined as the opposite of good, so this means something assessed as
such is unfit or morally reprehensible.

Fitness

Fitness implies appropriateness, that something does what it should without
waste or failure. It says that the thing or person is capable, that the job is
done well. When something is fit for purpose we can things like ‘that is a good joke’ or
‘she is a good doctor’.

Morality

When something is moral, we say an act is good or bad. We also may say that
the person is good or bad, although this implies that a person who does one bad
thing has permanently bad intent and will always do bad things, and vice versa.

This makes good and bad uniquely human. Animals do not have morals, so
predatory and possibly cruel (in our view) acts are neither good nor bad. We
cannot say, for example, that a lion which kills a terrified buffalo is bad
(although from a fitness viewpoint, the act is bad for the buffalo and good for
the lion).

Judgment and decision

Deciding whether something is good or bad is an evaluation, a decision. The
concept of good and bad is important in our decision-making and we use our
notions of goodness to censor both our own choices and those of others.

Comparison

Whether something is fit or moral, the decision of good and bad is typically
done as a comparison against a standard of ‘good’ and ‘bad’.

This standard is often fixed, but can be variable, such as when a parent
tells a child ‘you are good’ they may be comparing with how the child behaved
the previous day. A more fixed benchmark of ‘good’ would be the stable notions
the adult has of how children should behave.

Social construction

Good and bad are defined by people. When nobody knows and there is nobody
there to judge, then good and bad do not inherently exist.

The standards of good or bad are usually socially constructed. That is, we
create them with reference to others and what they have said. Good and bad hence
act as tools of social conformance, providing means by which those who deviate
from social norms can be judged and
criticized.

A parent’s view of what a good or bad child does is hence based on their
conversations with others, their experiences of reward and punishment as a
child, television features on parental discipline and so on.

Dilemmas

There are many dilemmas where an act may be both good and bad. For example
killing one person in order to save another (if only one can live, how do you
choose?). In this way, it can be difficult to live doing only good things. You
cannot just avoid bad things as this can result in further bad things happening.
We can be guilty by omission as well as commission.

Attribution

When we evaluate an action as good or bad, we seek to
explain this by identifying and
attributing causes. In this we
tend to over-emphasize
personal factors. In the actor-observer
difference, we tend more to judge others as being a bad person when the do
things wrong, yet we sustain our personal goodness by blaming the situation when
we do wrong or bad things.

Discussion

Right and wrong

Good and bad are often thought of as synonymous with right and wrong,
particularly in the moral definition. ‘Right’ in this sense is not logical
correctness but conformance to rules, which in the good-bad sense are the social
norms of morality.

When people say ‘I know it was wrong, but it was the right thing to do’ they
typically talking about the right thing being the ‘lesser of two evils’ (in
other words, comparatively good).

Evil

When something is highly immoral it may be described as evil. This is an
ultimate term, assuming total immorality, with an active desire to harm others,
or at least a total lack of concern for them. Evil implies knowing something is
bad but still doing it.

Degrees

Good and bad exists along a spectrum from angelic goodness to demonic evil.
Few people reach the extremes and many of us have a ‘zone of comfort’ where we
will do some good and some bad, yet where we can live with our actions.

Social desirability

Our notions of good and bad are very strong drivers of how we act. Partly
this is due to internal desire to do the ‘right thing’. More strongly, we are
very concerned that others think us to be good and so act in ways to gain this
approval. Being seen to be good is hence highly socially desirable.

This means that when we do things which others think of as bad (and perhaps
we reframe as ‘necessary’), we hide our actions and are careful not to let
others know. If they do find out, we will feel embarrassment and guilt.

Conscience

As well as the fear of criticism by others, we do good things because our
conscience (or super ego)
prods us into doing so. In this way good acts become their own reward as we feel
good for having remained consistent with
our values.

So what?

We all want to be thought of as good, so you can use the principles of good
and bad in many persuasion situations.

Praise them when they do the right thing, saying ‘you are good’. Find ways to
catch them doing good things. Praise improvement more than just doing the same
thing right again (although give some praise here too). 

When they do the wrong thing, criticize the action, not the person,
saying ‘that was bad’. Saying they are bad is punishing and may result in
them fighting back or turning inward. Saying the act is bad encourages them to
distance themselves from it and improve how they behave in future.

You can criticize others as bad to provide a contrast, but be very careful of
this as the person with you may wonder what you will say about them behind their
back.

It has been shown in many experiments that ordinary, good people can be
persuaded to do bad things when they fall into the pressures of a job or comply
to commands without question.

See also

Values, Trust,
Attribution Theory