malengine

• male engyn (12th - 15th centuries)

From Anglo-Norman mal engin, Middle French mal engin, from mal (“bad, evil”) + engin (“ruse; trickery; deception”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /malˈɛndʒɪn/

malengine (uncountable)

1. (archaic) Evil intent, bad intention; fraud, deceit.
   • 1485 July 31, Thomas Malory, “Capitulum quintum”, in [Le Morte Darthur], book XVIII, [London]: […] [by William Caxton], OCLC 71490786, leaf 367, recto; republished as H[einrich] Oskar Sommer, editor, Le Morte Darthur […], London: Published by David Nutt, […], 1889, OCLC 890162034, lines 15–16, page 733:

     for I dar ſaye / for good loue ſhe bad vs to dyner / and not for no male engyne /

   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, III.i:

     the chaste damzell, that had neuer priefe / Of such malengine and fine forgerie, / Did easily beleeue her strong extremitie.

   • 1641, John Milton, Of Reformation:

     for when the protector's brother, Lord Sudley, the admiral, through private malice and mal-engine was to lose his life, no man could be found fitter than Bishop Latimer […] to divulge in his sermon the forged accusations laid to his charge […].

• enameling, meningeal