ill nature

American  

noun

1. unkindly or unpleasant disposition.

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Etymology

Origin of ill nature

First recorded in 1685–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

ill nature

This wrestling has cost the Castigator ill nature, megalomania, nervous breakdowns and the creatures of his forced moods are far less credible, as contemporary humanity, than Hogarth's Gin Alleyites, Swift's Anglo-Lilliputs or even Dante's infernals.

From Time Magazine Archive

Lauder has great reading, but greater ill nature; and Mr. Douglas has shewn how much his evidence is invalidated by some interpolations which Lauder has since owned.

From The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume II by Cibber, Theophilus

It was so obviously a matter of personal ill nature on the part of the captain in charge of the gate police that they realized it was not a subject for further discussion.

From Across Mongolian Plains A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' by Andrews, Roy Chapman

And it is he, not they, who is justly hailed as the founder of that benign school of comic art which gives us humor without coarseness, and satire without ill nature.

From Caricature and Other Comic Art in all Times and many Lands. by Parton, James

Lavinia's winsome face, her eyes half tender, half alluring, her pretty mouth with not an atom of ill nature in its curves, her sympathetic voice, at once attracted the audience.

From Madame Flirt A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' by Pearce, Charles Edward