spite
Contents
EnglishEdit
Alternative formsEdit
- spight (obsolete)
PronunciationEdit
Etymology 1Edit
From a shortening of Middle English despit, from Old French despit (whence despite), from Latin dēspectum (“looking down on”), from Latin dēspiciō (“to look down, despise”). Compare also Dutch spijt.
NounEdit
spite (usually uncountable, plural spites)
- Ill will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart; a desire to vex or injure; petty malice
- Synonyms: grudge, rancor.
- He was so filled with spite for his ex-wife, he could not hold down a job.
- They did it just for spite.
- c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act III, scene i]:
- This is the deadly spite that angers.
- 1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 7, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:
- Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.
- (obsolete) Vexation; chagrin; mortification.
- c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene v]:
- "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite."
TranslationsEdit
ill-will or hatred toward another; a desire to vex or injure
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vexation, chagrin, mortification
VerbEdit
spite (third-person singular simple present spites, present participle spiting, simple past and past participle spited)
- (transitive) To treat maliciously; to try to injure or thwart.
- She soon married again, to spite her ex-husband.
- (transitive, obsolete) To be angry at; to hate.
- (Can we date this quote by Fuller?)
- The Danes, then […] pagans, spited places of religion.
- (Can we date this quote by Fuller?)
- (transitive) To fill with spite; to offend; to vex.
- (Can we date this quote by Sir W. Temple?)
- Darius, spited at the Magi, endeavoured to abolish not only their learning, but their language.
- (Can we date this quote by Sir W. Temple?)
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
to treat maliciously
to be angry at; to hate
to fill with spite
See alsoEdit
Etymology 2Edit
PrepositionEdit
spite