Evil like good is purely contextual, governed by motive and circumstance. Nothing else not even intent.
Acts and items cannot be inherently evil.
If I kill a man to take his money, that is bad if I kill a man to stop him hurting a child that is right but neither action is evil or good.
Part of the problem is that people confuse evil with immoral, bad, incorrect, unethical, wicked, pragmatic and a whole lot of other words carrying negative insinuations.
Like these other word "evil" has particular connotation, it smacks of cruelty above all, of an absence of compassion, and of course a disrespect for life itself.
Actual evil is rare because a fully evil act require that no good will come of it, not even joy or satisfaction to the the perpetrator.
An act of pure good is done for no reason other than that is is a good thing to do, likewise an act of pure evil is done simply because it it is an evil thing to do.
Imagine the mentality you would have to have to carry out purely evil acts.

if we look back to the beginning of recorded history, & even pre-historical evidence, evil makes up part of the human psyche. it's not rare. most times evil predominates, as it does today.

malintent

Evil is a choice, not a supernatural force, in my opinion. We humans have a conscience and so if a person knowingly causes harm, when there are better choices, and that person benefits from that harm, either by selfish greed or simply joy at seeing the suffering or destruction, that would be a choice I would call evil.

Deliberate manipulation of events to consciously cause harm

You could define evil as just the doing of malicious harm. Or, that which is neither good nor neutral. Or, you could define it as theists would, as a power which opposes good. But the three are not mutually exclusive, so it may carry many and several meanings, it all depends on context.

Evil is cruelty, injurious, harmful, morally wrong and/or bad behavior.