spite

English

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • enPR: spīt, IPA(key): /spaɪt/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -aɪt

Etymology 1

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.

Noun

spite (usually uncountable, plural spites)

  1. Ill will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart; a desire to vex or injure; petty malice; 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.
    • Shakespeare
      This is the deadly spite that angers.
    • 1945 August 17, George Orwell, 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.
  2. (obsolete) Vexation; chagrin; mortification.
    "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite." Shakespeare, Hamlet
Translations

Verb

spite (third-person singular simple present spites, present participle spiting, simple past and past participle spited)

  1. (transitive) To treat maliciously; to try to injure or thwart.
    She soon married again, to spite her ex-husband.
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To be angry at; to hate.
    • Fuller
      The Danes, then […] pagans, spited places of religion.
  3. (transitive) To fill with spite; to offend; to vex.
    • Sir W. Temple
      Darius, spited at the Magi, endeavoured to abolish not only their learning, but their language.
Translations

See also

Etymology 2

Preposition

spite

  1. Notwithstanding; despite.

Anagrams

Esperanto

Etymology

From English spite.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈspi.te/

Adverb

spite

  1. in spite of
  2. defiantly

Usage notes

Often used with the accusative or with the preposition al.

Derived terms

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