spite

SPYT/spaɪt/

Verbspites, spiting, spited

6 meanings of spite

Practice

1
noununcountable
Ill will toward another person, joined with a desire to annoy, hurt, or frustrate them, often without fair cause.
His refusal to help seemed driven by nothing but spite.
Out of spite, she gave away the tickets she knew her sister wanted.
Similargrudge, rancor
Oppositegoodwill, kindness, benevolence
Note
Malice with a petty edge, and contempt at its root. Middle English spit was clipped from despit, the Old French word that also gave English despite (compare the prepositional "despite" sense). Behind both lies Latin dēspiciō, "to look down on." Usually uncountable, it settles into phrases that name a motive: out of spite, just for spite. George Orwell's humans deny Snowball's guilt simply out of spite.
2
verbtransitive
To treat someone maliciously, trying to hurt them or thwart what they want.
They cut down the old tree to spite the neighbors who loved its shade.
He resigned publicly to spite the manager who had blocked his promotion.
Similarannoy, hurt, upset, thwart
Oppositeplease
3
verbtransitive
To fill someone with annoyance; to offend or vex them.
The public snub spited her deeply, and she nursed the grievance for weeks.
Careless remarks spite people more than the speaker ever realizes.
Similaroffend, vex, annoy, irk, hurt
Oppositeplease, delight
Note
The verb works from the other side: the person who is spited is the one left full of spite. William Temple, writing before 1700, has the Persians "spighted at the Magi." That is a past participle followed by at, meaning provoked and resentful toward them, built like angry at or vexed at. The gh spelling is an old one, and the verb itself is regular: spite, spited, spiting.

Less common meanings

4
prepositionarchaic
In older writing, despite: used before a noun naming an obstacle or an opposing fact, to show that something happens or holds true anyway.
Note
Prepositional spite is despite with its first syllable dropped. It is the same clipping that turned despit into the noun, as told under the noun of ill will. Used on its own before a noun, it reads as old-fashioned, so in modern writing despite is the natural choice.
5
nounobsoleteuncountable
A feeling of vexation, chagrin, or mortification.
"The time is out of joint: O cursed spite."
c. 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”
Note
This feeling turns inward rather than at someone else: it is the sting of being thwarted, not the wish to thwart. Hamlet's "O cursed spite," in Shakespeare's play of about 1600, uses this sense, because he is galled by his task, not plotting against anyone. Modern readers easily hear the malicious meaning in the line. In new writing, vexation or chagrin says this plainly.
6
verbobsoletetransitive
To feel anger toward or hatred of someone.
Note
Here the verb names a feeling rather than a deed: to spite was simply to hate or resent. In The Church-history of Britain (1655), Thomas Fuller says the pagan Danes "principally spited places of religion," so the object could be a thing as well as a person. The verb now survives only as the verb of malicious acts, so a modern reader would take such a sentence to mean deliberate harm.

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Origin

This word comes from Middle English spit, a shortened form of despit (which also gave us "despite"). That came from Old French despit, from Latin dēspectum ("looking down on"), from dēspiciō ("to look down, despise").