Idioms

bad sort

bad sort

An aggressive, mean-spirited, dangerous, or generally unpleasant person. I wouldn't get involved with him, he's known to be a bad sort. If your so-called "friend" is encouraging you to shoplift, well, then they're a bad sort. That George fellow is a bad sort. I heard he was arrested just last year for robbing a convenience store for drug money.
See also: bad, sort
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

bad sort, a

An unpleasant, mean person, as in We cautioned Bill about his friend, who was clearly a bad sort. The antonym is a good sort, a pleasant, kind person, as in She's a good sort, always helping her neighbors. The latter is stronger than not a bad sort, as in He seems ill-tempered now and then, but he's not a bad sort. All three terms use a sort in the sense of "kind of person." [Second half of 1800s]
See also: bad
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
See also:
References in classic literature
"Carter's not a bad sort. We have him to dine now and then.
I'd rather live in a little hut on the side of the road with a man I was fond of than in my big house with the one I've got.' Jane Ann's man ain't such a bad sort, nuther, though he's so contrary that he wears his fur coat when the thermometer's at ninety.
Mell was not a bad sort of fellow, but hadn't a sixpence to bless himself with; and that there was no doubt that old Mrs.
He is a bad sort. Trap-robber, horse-thief, squaw-man, renegado - Hank Butters - I know him very well.
"Ah, Madame," said D'Artagnan, entering by the door which the young woman opened for him, "allow me to tell you that you have a bad sort of a husband."
Come to think of it, the older Rose wasn't acting like a bad sort. But then, when it came to a show-down she might not be so magnanimous as she had appeared tonight.
"Miss Scatcherd is hasty--you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."
she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
"To get their own bread they must overdose the king's lieges; and that's a bad sort of treason, Mr.
I am aware he is a furious royalist; but, in spite of that, and of his being king's attorney, he is a man like ourselves, and I fancy not a bad sort of one."
"He is not a bad sort, after all, that officer gentleman."
The Chancellor is in the pocket of the money lenders and has to do as he is told; otherwise he's bankrupt, and a bad sort of bankruptcy, too, with nothing but cards and actresses behind it.
He can't be such a bad sort if he knew enough to please his mother-in-law by dining with her in her house on Mother's Day.
Apparently, there is good and bad cholesterol and a high level of the bad sort is not good because it can lead to a build up of fatty material that narrows the arteries to the heart.
Berofksy then critiques what he calls conditionalist analyses of freedom, which underlie what he sees as a bad sort of compatibilism, one in the grips of necessitarian metaphysics.
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