Mischievous

//ˈmɪs.t͡ʃɪ.vəs// adj

adj ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Causing mischief; injurious.

    "...; that good and bad actions at present are naturally rewarded and punished, not only as beneficial and mischievous to society, but also as virtuous and civious; ..."

  2. 2
    Troublesome, cheeky, badly behaved, impish, naughty, disobedient; showing a fondness for causing trouble in a playful way and liking to have fun by playing harmless tricks on people or doing things they are not supposed to do.

    "Matthew had a twin brother called Edward, who was always mischievous and badly behaved."

Adjective
  1. 1
    deliberately causing harm or damage wordnet
  2. 2
    naughtily or annoyingly playful wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
harmfulharmfulairy fairyannoyinganticarch

Example

More examples

"It is true the boy is mischievous, but he is kind at heart."

Etymology

From Middle English myschevous, mischevous, from Anglo-Norman meschevous, from Old French meschever, from mes- (“mis-”) + chever (“come to an end”) (from chef (“head”)). By surface analysis, mischief + -ous.

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