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A bad ending occurs when the player finishes a video game but is not completely successful for some reason. For example, in Paper Mario 2, the game ends before the final fight if you tell the final boss, the Shadow Queen, that you want to join her, earning you a bad ending in which Mario joins the Shadow Queen, and she dominates the world (or she just simply kills Mario). Most bad endings are gotten by being defeated in a certain fight, but this case is more of a glorified Game Over than a bad ending.
Generally speaking, in a "bad ending", the player has reached an end-point of the game, and has technically won, but the victory is incomplete, and, in some cases, isn't much of a victory at all. The Sonic games on Genesis and Game Gear are prime examples. A bad ending is earned by failing to gain all available Chaos Emeralds. In the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, for example, Sonic is trying to rescue his friend Tails from the clutches of Dr. Eggman. If Sonic has 5 Chaos Emeralds by the time he defeats Silver Sonic, Silver Sonic will then yield the 6th emerald without any further dispute. If not, he cannot continue on and must abandon his quest. In the credits, Tails is presumed to be dead). In Sonic CD, Sonic must get all seven time stones, or he cannot earn the good future in the final boss stage, Metallic Madness 3. Also, in the ending movies, the Little Planet reappears tethered to Sonic's world after previously detaching when the last boss was beaten.
A Bad ending is similar to a False Ending, although with the latter, you continue with the story.