Despiteful

adj

adj ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Full of despite; expressing malice or contemptuous hate. archaic

    "The Londoners seeing that they could get no vantage against the duke, who was without their reach, to bewreak their anger they took his arms, which in most despiteful wise they hanged up in the open places of the city in sign of reproach, as for a traitor; […]"

Adjective
  1. 1
    showing malicious ill will and a desire to hurt; motivated by spite wordnet

Example

More examples

"The Londoners seeing that they could get no vantage against the duke, who was without their reach, to bewreak their anger they took his arms, which in most despiteful wise they hanged up in the open places of the city in sign of reproach, as for a traitor; […]"

Etymology

From despite + -ful.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.