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

[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

Examples 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

Word History

First Known Use

15th century, in the meaning defined above

Legal Definition

malice aforethought

see malice