bad seed
Noun
Meaning
bad seed (usually uncountable, plural bad seeds)
A genetic source of bad behavior or other negative results.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Examples
Jealousy has always been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed.
Bad seed is a robbery of the worst kind: for your pocket-book not only suffers by it, but your preparations are lost and a season passes away unimproved.
But so much the more malign and wild does the ground become with bad seed and untilled, as it has the more of good earthly vigor.
Keep the soil healthy and the bad seed won't grow.
I think there is such a thing as a bad seed that comes to flower in certain people. The danger with that theory is that we begin to look for those "troublemakers" early on and try to weed them out. That's very dangerous, because it could work against kids who are just routine troublemakers.
Today’s Moment-er has written a novel that sounds part Bad Seed, part Exorcist, and so I am instantly intrigued.