spite
/spʌɪt
/noun [mass noun]
1A desire to hurt, annoy, or offend someone: he’d think I was saying it out of spite...
- Those of a pure heart who would never hurt anyone in sheer spite.
- He hoped she grew out of her hatefulness one day, and hoped that there was a good reason why she was so full of malice and spite.
- It means that we are subjects of jealousy and envy and malice and spite and hatred.
Synonyms
malice, maliciousness, ill will, ill feeling, spitefulness, bitterness, animosity, hostility, antagonism, enmity, resentment, resentfulness, rancour, malevolence, venom, spleen, gall, malignance, malignity, evil intentions, envy, hate, hatred, vengeance, vengefulness, vindictiveness;
nastiness, mean-spiritedness, meanness
informal bitchiness, cattiness
literary maleficence
1.1 [count noun] archaic A grudge: it seemed as if the wind had a spite at her...
- The banality of grey, prison like walls high-rising above their heads was a spite to their very faces.
- Leeds showed character, spirit and not a little spite to claw themselves back into the match.
verb [with object]
Deliberately hurt, annoy, or offend (someone): he put the house up for sale to spite his family...
- You're clearly far more interested in spiting this man than in considering the defense needs of the country.
- It's further spiting me today by giving me some horrendous bowel cramps and spectacular diarrhoea.
- It was becoming a bad habit of mine, spiting him.
Synonyms
upset, hurt, wound, distress, injure;
annoy, irritate, vex, displease, provoke, gall, peeve, pique, offend, put out;
thwart, foil, frustrate
informal aggravate, rile, miff
vulgar slang piss off
Phrases
in spite of
in spite of oneself
Origin
Middle English: shortening of Old French despit 'contempt', despiter 'show contempt for'.
despise from Middle English:
Despise comes via Old French despit from Latin despicere, from de- ‘down’ and specere ‘look at’. Despicable ‘deserving to be despised’ (mid 16th century) comes from the same root, while spite (Middle English) is a shortening of the French.
Rhymes
- monocularly
- monoculturalism
- monoculture
- monoculturist
- monoculus
- monocycle
- monocyclic
- monocystic
- monocystid
- monocyte
- monocytic
- monocytoid
- monocytosis
- monodactyl
- monodactylous
- monodactyly
- monodeiodinase
- monodeiodinating
- monodeiodination
- monodelphic
- monodelphous
- monodentate
- monodermic
- monodia
- monodialectal