See necessary evil on Wiktionary
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "necessary evils",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "necessary evil (plural necessary evils)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"senses": [
{
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}
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Another punishing round of chemo is a necessary evil if Lisa is to have a fighting chance against the cancer.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"text": "My boss is a real piece of work, but my kids make keeping this job a necessary evil.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted, especially because the available alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse."
],
"id": "en-necessary_evil-en-noun-qoYMkrou",
"links": [
[
"unfavorable",
"unfavorable"
],
[
"thing",
"thing"
],
[
"done",
"done"
],
[
"accepted",
"accepted"
],
[
"courses of action",
"courses of action"
],
[
"inaction",
"inaction"
],
[
"worse",
"worse"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) An unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted, especially because the available alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要之惡"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要之恶"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nutné zlo"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nødvendigt onde"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "noodzakelijk kwaad"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "välttämätön paha"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal nécessaire"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal pour un bien"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "notwendiges Übel"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "anagkaío kakó",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "αναγκαίο κακό"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "hitsuyōaku",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要悪"
},
{
"alt": "必要惡",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "piryoak",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "필요악"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nødvendig onde"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "zło konieczne"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal necessário"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "neobxodimoje zlo",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "необходимое зло"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal necesario"
}
]
}
],
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"word": "necessary evil"
}
{
"forms": [
{
"form": "necessary evils",
"tags": [
"plural"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {},
"expansion": "necessary evil (plural necessary evils)",
"name": "en-noun"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "noun",
"related": [
{
"word": "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"
}
],
"senses": [
{
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"Terms with Japanese translations",
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"Terms with Norwegian Bokmål translations",
"Terms with Polish translations",
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"Terms with Russian translations",
"Terms with Spanish translations"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "Another punishing round of chemo is a necessary evil if Lisa is to have a fighting chance against the cancer.",
"type": "example"
},
{
"text": "My boss is a real piece of work, but my kids make keeping this job a necessary evil.",
"type": "example"
}
],
"glosses": [
"An unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted, especially because the available alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse."
],
"links": [
[
"unfavorable",
"unfavorable"
],
[
"thing",
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"(idiomatic) An unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted, especially because the available alternative courses of action or inaction would be worse."
],
"tags": [
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]
}
],
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"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要之惡"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要之恶"
},
{
"code": "cs",
"lang": "Czech",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nutné zlo"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nødvendigt onde"
},
{
"code": "nl",
"lang": "Dutch",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "noodzakelijk kwaad"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "välttämätön paha"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal nécessaire"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal pour un bien"
},
{
"code": "de",
"lang": "German",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "notwendiges Übel"
},
{
"code": "el",
"lang": "Greek",
"roman": "anagkaío kakó",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "αναγκαίο κακό"
},
{
"code": "ja",
"lang": "Japanese",
"roman": "hitsuyōaku",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "必要悪"
},
{
"alt": "必要惡",
"code": "ko",
"lang": "Korean",
"roman": "piryoak",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "필요악"
},
{
"code": "nb",
"lang": "Norwegian Bokmål",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "nødvendig onde"
},
{
"code": "pl",
"lang": "Polish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"word": "zło konieczne"
},
{
"code": "pt",
"lang": "Portuguese",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal necessário"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "neobxodimoje zlo",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"neuter"
],
"word": "необходимое зло"
},
{
"code": "es",
"lang": "Spanish",
"sense": "unfavorable thing that must be done or accepted",
"tags": [
"masculine"
],
"word": "mal necesario"
}
],
"word": "necessary evil"
}
Download raw JSONL data for necessary evil meaning in All languages combined (4.6kB)
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-21 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (d8cb2f3 and 4e554ae). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.