Even though most malefactors on this planet happen to be male, the word in itself has nothing to imply that men have a monopoly in the crime biz. A woman who holds up a bank is still a malefactor, maybe a malefactress, but never a femalefactor.
The combining form male- meaning 'evil' occurs in words derived from Latin. So malevolence in a person can be a precursor to violence in those belonging to the fair sex as easily as in those of the unfair sex. This week brings together five words with meanings that are not the first things that come to mind. Watch out for these red-herring words! malefactor (MAL-uh-fak-tuhr) noun One who does harm. [From Latin male- (evil) + facere (to do).] Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=malefactor -Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org) "True, most malefactors do get some sort of a break on their jail time in Orange County." Gordon Dillow; No Break for Hilton in OC; The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, California); Jun 10, 2007. Sponsors' Messages: New photos, quotes every day, dogs on Saturday, Nature on Sunday, meditations sprinkled throughout. A true feast of visual stimuli http://thedailybuzzz.com Subscribe to http://delanceyplace.com -- a carefully selected non-fiction book excerpt free to your email each day. It's the thinking person's daily quotation. ............................................................................ A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his head. -Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849) Discuss this week's words on our bulletin board: http://wordsmith.org/board Remove, change address, gift subs: http://wordsmith.org/awad/subscriber.html Pronunciation: http://wordsmith.org/words/malefactor.wav http://wordsmith.org/words/malefactor.ram Permalink: http://wordsmith.org/words/malefactor.html This message was sent to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]".
