From Old English 'yfel,' likely meaning 'exceeding due measure' — the oldest Germanic concept of evil rooted in transgression.
Profoundly immoral and wicked; causing harm or misfortune deliberately.
From Old English 'yfel' (bad, vicious, ill, wicked), from Proto-Germanic *ubilaz (exceeding due measure, overstepping proper bounds), possibly from PIE *upélos, from *upo (under, up from under). The deep etymology suggests that 'evil' originally meant something that transgresses or goes beyond its proper limit — connecting moral badness to the concept of excess rather than deficiency. This is a remarkable early metaphor: evil is not
In Old English, 'yfel' was the general-purpose word for anything bad — a toothache, bad weather, spoiled food, or moral wickedness were all 'yfel.' Its restriction to primarily moral badness is a relatively modern development, accelerated by the availability of alternatives like 'bad' (from Middle English) and 'ill' (from Old Norse).