malice aforethought
noun
law
: the intention or desire to commit a criminal act and especially murder without justification or excuse and usually with some degree of deliberation or premeditation or wanton disregard for life
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human. Put another way, murder is the (1) intentional and (2) unjustified killing of another human being.—
Joshua K. Roberts
Joshua K. Roberts[Assistant Solicitor Trasi] Campbell's argument seeks to meet South Carolina's legal definition of murder, which reads that the crime must be carried out with "malice aforethought" and cannot be done unintentionally.—Evan McKenna
Evan McKennaExamples of malice aforethought in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
And, of course, installing a highly unsupported XP on a device that's connected to the modern Internet is malice aforethought.
—Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 26 May 2023
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Kevin Purdy, Ars Technica, 26 May 2023
Dictionary Entries Near malice aforethought
Cite this Entry
“Malice aforethought.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/malice%20aforethought. Accessed 28 Nov. 2024.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share