Prefix · bad / deficient / wrong
Signals something bad, deficient, or wrong: malfunction, malnutrition, malpractice, malice.
Written by Bryan López, English teacher · Updated
Mal- comes from Latin "malus" (bad) and signals something deficient, wrong, or harmful: malfunction = working badly or incorrectly; malnutrition = insufficient or imbalanced nutrition; malice = the intent to cause harm; malpractice = incorrect or negligent professional practice; malodorous = smelling bad. It is the direct opposite of bene- (good).
Mal- is particularly productive in medicine and law: malformation = an abnormal or deficient formation (in biology and medicine); malignant = tending to worsen and cause harm (malignant vs benign tumours); malaria = literally "bad air" (the historical name of the disease, before its real cause was known); malpractice = negligent or incorrect practice by a medical or legal professional.
Attaches to nouns and verbs. Identical in Spanish and English:
Pronunciation: /mæl/. Identical in Spanish and English. Written without a hyphen in modern English.
mal-/mæl/
Tap the button to hear how the prefix sounds. Each word in the table has its own audio.
"Malice" = the harmful intent itself: "He acted with malice." "Malicious" = the adjective describing a person or act driven by that intent: "a malicious attack." They are different grammatical forms of the same concept.
"Malaria" comes from Italian "mala aria" (bad air). Before the Plasmodium parasite was discovered in the nineteenth century, the illness was attributed to the vapours of swamps and marshes. Mal- here comes from the same Latin root "malus" (bad).
A trick to remember it
Mal- = "bad" or "deficient": malfunction = working badly, malnutrition = insufficient nutrition, malpractice = incorrect professional practice, malice = intent to harm. Identical in Spanish and English. It is the exact antonym of bene- (good, beneficial).
Exercise 1 · Form the word
Exercise 2 · Pick the right one
"Children suffering from ___ lack essential nutrients and are more vulnerable to disease and cognitive delays."
Exercise 3 · Pick the right one
Why is the disease "malaria" named as it is?
The prefix mal- signals something bad, deficient, or wrong: malfunction, malnutrition, malpractice, malice. In Spanish it usually maps to mal-.
The prefix mal- is pronounced /mæl/. For example, "malfunction".
"function" becomes "malfunction". It is a typical example of the mal- prefix.
un-, re-, pre-, dis-, over-, in-... every beginning you need to unlock thousands of English words at once.