bad

Our Living Language Many people might have the impression that the slang usage of bad to mean its opposite, "excellent," is a recent innovation of African American Vernacular English. While the usage is of African American origin and parallels to it are found in language use throughout the Caribbean, the "good" use of bad has been recorded for over a century. The first known example dates from 1897. Even earlier, beginning in the 1850s, the word appears in the sense "formidable, very tough," as applied to persons. Whether or not the two usages are related, they both illustrate a favorite creative device of informal and slang language—using a word to mean the opposite of what it "really" means. This is by no means uncommon; people use words sarcastically to mean the opposite of their actual meanings on a daily basis. What is more unusual is for such a usage to be generally accepted within a larger community. Perhaps when the concepts are as basic as "good" and "bad" this general acceptance is made easier. A similar instance is the word uptight, which in the 1960s enjoyed usage in the sense "excellent" alongside its now-current, negative meaning of "tense."

usage: The adjective bad meaning “unpleasant, unattractive, spoiled, etc.,” is the usual form to follow such copulative verbs as sound, smell, look, and taste: After the rainstorm the water tasted bad. The locker room smells bad. After the copulative verb feel, the adjective badly in reference to physical or emotional states is also used and is standard, although bad is more common in formal writing. bad as an adverb appears mainly in informal contexts. See also badly, good.