Negative Personality Adjectives: How to Describe Your Favorite Antagonists

December 21, 2019

Sometimes it’s fun being bad. Other times, however, you might be looking for a strew of colorful adjectives that convey just how bad someone else is.

Whether you’re trying to describe the antagonists of your own life or your manuscript, accurately describing characters (both naughty and nice) requires creative adjectives that convey that personality.

Using positive and negative adjectives can help you to effectively express your thoughts and help your audience to better understand your subject.

Describing Personality with Adjectives

Every adjective can evoke a number of feelings, both good and bad. This makes it really important to choose your words carefully and consider their connotation, since even slightly similar words can carry quite different meanings.

Adjectives that Describe Negative Personality

There are lots of adjectives you can use to describe a negative personality. Knowing a few of them can be handy not only in writing but also in conversations, where it is important to give an accurate account of a person.

Here are a few adjectives you can use that will also help to establish tone in your writing.

aimless	confrontational	grumpy	obnoxious
aloof	cowardly	harsh	offensive
argumentative	cruel	impatient	overcritical
belligerent	cynical	impulsive	overcritical
big-headed	deceitful	inconsiderate	pitiful
blunt	discourteous	jealous	pompous
boastful	dishonest	killjoy	rude
boring	disloyal	know-it-all	selfish
callous	fickle	moody	spoilsport
careless	fussy	narrow-minded	untrustworthy
clingy	greedy	nervous	uptight

Download a PDF of our list of negative personality adjectives for quick reference.

More Negative Personality Adjectives

aggressive
annoying
arrogant
bossy
conceited
cruel
frivolous
lazy
offensive
panicky
tactless
thoughtless

Sentence Examples

The math teacher is quite grumpy as she hands back the low-scoring exams.
I don’t know how they’ll manage with that budget for the wedding; you know how frivolous she is with her spending.
Her successor was regarded as a bitter and angry woman.
The greedy politician was somehow elected to serve another term.
She’s so conceited that she never even thinks about how others feel.

Examples from Literature

Veronica Roth’s Divergent

In Divergent, Tris was bullied and almost thrown off a ledge to her death after being seen as a threat. One of the people who tried to kill her actually turned out to be one of her friends. Although she survived, she couldn’t bring herself to forgive him and even threatened to kill him. The next day, his body was found from under the Chasm.

"This is ridiculous," she says, flushing. 
"He throws himself off a ledge and Eric's calling it brave?
Eric, who tried to have you throw knives at Al's head?"
Her face contorts.
"He wasn't brave! He was depressed and a coward,
and he almost killed me! Is that the kind of thing we respect here?"

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

In this excerpt from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry was unfortunate enough to come across Argus Filch and his cat Mrs. Norris.

"Right," said Harry, backing away from the accusing stare of
Mrs. Norris, but not quickly enough.
Drawn to the spot by the mysterious power that seemed to connect him
with his foul cat, Argus Filch burst suddenly through a tapestry to Harry's right, wheezing and looking wildly about for the rule-breaker.
There was a thick tartan scarf bound around his head,
and his nose was unusually purple.