SPITEFUL


Meaning of SPITEFUL in English

spite ‧ ful /ˈspaɪtf ə l/ BrE AmE adjective

deliberately nasty to someone in order to hurt or upset them SYN vicious :

She was spiteful and unkind, both to Isabel and to her son.

a spiteful remark

—spitefully adverb

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THESAURUS

▪ unkind treating people in a way that makes them unhappy or upset. Unkind sounds rather formal. In everyday English, people usually say mean or nasty :

Children can be very unkind to each other.

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a rather unkind remark

▪ mean especially spoken unkind:

Don’t be mean to your sister!

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It was a mean thing to do.

▪ nasty deliberately unkind, and seeming to enjoy making people unhappy:

He said some really nasty things before he left.

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a nasty man

▪ hurtful unkind – used about remarks and actions:

Joe couldn’t forget the hurtful things she had said.

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Couples sometimes do hurtful things to each other.

▪ spiteful deliberately unkind to someone because you are jealous of them or angry with them:

The other women were spiteful to her, and gave her the hardest work to do.

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She watched them with spiteful glee (=pleasure) .

▪ malicious deliberately behaving in a way that is likely to upset, hurt, or cause problems for someone:

Someone had been spreading malicious rumours about him.

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There was a malicious smile on her face.

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an act of malicious vandalism

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The accusations are malicious.

▪ unsympathetic not seeming to care about someone’s problems, and not trying to help them or make them feel better:

Her parents were very unsympathetic, and told her that she deserved to fail her exam.

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an unsympathetic boss

▪ hard-hearted very unsympathetic and not caring at all about other people’s feelings:

Was he hard-hearted enough to leave his son in jail overnight?

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a hard-hearted businessman

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.      Longman - Словарь современного английского языка.