What does “il minore dei mali” mean in Italian?

Il minore dei mali is the choice you make when there is no good choice — “the lesser of two evils.” Mali is the plural of male, here meaning “ills” or “bad things,” and minore is “lesser/smaller,” so the phrase literally weighs evils against each other and picks the lighter one. In the clip it’s a wry verdict on a leader: she may be blunt, but at least you always know her moves — so she’s il minore dei mali.

Male is a versatile word — pain (mi fa male), evil/wrong (il bene e il male), or simply “badly” as an adverb (va male). The fixed idiom keeps the literary plural mali (ills/evils). A close cousin is tra due fuochi (caught between two fires) for being trapped between bad options. Minore also gives English-friendly cognates: a minore is a minor (under-age), and “minor key” in music is tono minore.