The quality or state of being bad, evil, or undesirable. It encompasses moral wrongness, poor quality, or harmful characteristics.
Formed by adding the suffix '-ness' to 'bad', following standard English word formation patterns. 'Bad' itself comes from Old English 'bæddel', possibly meaning 'hermaphrodite' or 'effeminate man', later generalizing to mean 'inferior' or 'evil'.
Interestingly, 'bad' originally had sexual connotations before becoming our general term for 'not good'. The journey from specific taboo to universal negative shows how moral language evolves!
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