A prefix meaning bad or evil; also used as a standalone word in some contexts meaning bad luck or difficulty.
From Latin 'malus' meaning bad or evil. It appears in English through Old French and is used as a productive prefix in words like 'malfunction,' 'malnourished,' and 'malware.'
The prefix 'mal-' is one of the few Latin prefixes English speakers intuitively understand, probably because we use it so constantly in modern words—malware sounds obvious, but that's only because we've trained ourselves to hear 'mal' as 'bad.'
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