dispiteous

American  

[dis-pit-ee-uhs] / dɪsˈpɪt i əs /

adjective

Archaic.

1. malicious; cruel; pitiless.

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Other Word Forms

• dispiteously adverb
• dispiteousness noun

Etymology

Origin of dispiteous

1795–1805; earlier despiteous, alteration, after piteous, of dispitous, despitous, Middle English < Anglo-French, Old French; despite, -ous; later taken as dis- ¹ + piteous

Example Sentences

The second thought made plain the dispiteous hardness of it all, showing me how I had reasoned like a boy in planning for retrieval.

From The Master of Appleby A Novel Tale Concerning Itself in Part with the Great Struggle in the Two Carolinas; but Chiefly with the Adventures Therein of Two Gentlemen Who Loved One and the Same Lady by Lynde, Francis

The morning had succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence.

From The Wearing of the Green, or The Prosecuted Funeral Procession by Sullivan, A.M. (Alexander Martin)

Be but as sweet as is the bitterest, The most dispiteous out of all the gods, I am well pleased.

From Poems & Ballads (First Series) by Swinburne, Algernon Charles

This dispiteous and abominable tyrant prohibits the bodies of the warriors fallen in the celebrated siege of that city from burial.

From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 355, May 1845 by Various