Dispiteous
adj
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adjective
- 1 Not showing mercy or pity. archaic, literary
"[…] these .ii. noble princes [wer] by treyterous tiranny taken & depriued of their estate, shortly shut vp in prison & priuely slain & murderd by yᵉ cruell ambicion of their vnnaturall vncle & dispiteous tourmentours […]"
Example
More examples"[…] these .ii. noble princes [wer] by treyterous tiranny taken & depriued of their estate, shortly shut vp in prison & priuely slain & murderd by yᵉ cruell ambicion of their vnnaturall vncle & dispiteous tourmentours […]"
Etymology
Variant of despiteous, later reanalysed as dis- + piteous.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.