小悪魔【こあくま】: "Little devil"... or real devil?


Hearing the word 小悪魔 used here and there, I had always foolishly assumed that
the addition of that '小' in front, made it a much more harmless, playful,
version of the real thing. And consequently, calling someone (with whom one is
familiar enough, of course) '小悪魔', would be akin to using the literal
equivalent in English, where nobody would ever be offended at being called a
"[little
devil](http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=little+devil&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1068&bih=880)".

However, recent conversations have sown the seeds of doubt in my mind, and
upon checking the dictionary (what I should have done earlier), I find that
the official definition given by WWWJDIC is:

> 小悪魔 [こあくま] (n,adj-na) (col) rogue, devil, imp

... which has zero playfulness to it, and sounds about just as bad as calling
somebody "Satan" or "the Devil" (悪魔 without 小).

My question is therefore:

**How strong (and potentially offensive) is the word in a casual context? Does
it have _any_ of the "harmless naughtiness" overtones a clueless English
speaker might expect from such a term?**




Your instinct was basically correct -- WWWJDIC isn't really the authority on
nuances ;)

大辞泉 sums up the literal and colloquial meanings quite well, judging from my
experience:

> １ 小さく力の弱い悪魔。しょうあくま。  
> ２ 男性の心を翻弄(ほんろう)する、魅力的な若い女性。




Your instinct was basically correct -- WWWJDIC isn't really the authority on
nuances ;)

大辞泉 sums up the literal and colloquial meanings quite well, judging from my
experience:

> １ 小さく力の弱い悪魔。しょうあくま。  
> ２ 男性の心を翻弄(ほんろう)する、魅力的な若い女性。

