malus
n.—Gloss: A penalty for poor performance, the opposite of a bonus. «A report by Frankfurt-based Center for Financial Studies has coined a new word—malus. Malus is Latin for “bad” while bonus means “good.” It says if executives can win bonuses for a superior performance, they also need to be exposed to penalties such as salary cuts for presiding over failures, which can have ramifications for financial stability.» —“Financial crisis will axe 20 million jobs” Indian Express (New Delhi, India) Oct. 21, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
J.P. in Temecula, California, is a high schooler studying French and Spanish. He notes that the Spanish word con means “with” and English has some linguistically related words, such as congress, which suggests “coming...
Many of us struggled with the Old English poem “Beowulf” in high school. But what if you could actually hear “Beowulf” in the English of today? There’s a new translation by Maria Dahvana Headley that uses contemporary...