mean-spirited
adjective
Inconsiderate and unsympathetic: he’s an egotistical, mean-spirited, abusive man these reality shows all seem to be mean-spirited...
- So, at seventeen, Andersen found himself in a classroom with eleven-year-olds, again an outsider and at the mercy of a mean-spirited, manipulative headmaster.
- Her laugh was infuriating and terribly mean-spirited.
- Without being petty or mean-spirited, she explained why what had so persuaded me had left her so unmoved.
Derivatives
mean-spiritedness
- It is an innocent story, free of cynicism or irony or any trace of mean-spiritedness.
- Name-calling, popularity contests and general mean-spiritedness have long been a part of adolescence.
- It is a movie that wants to show the venality, shallowness, bitterness, paranoia, mean-spiritedness and general desperation that most of us know lurks beneath the surface of Hollywood life.