despitefully

Meaning

1. 1adverbnot comparablearchaicliterary

   In a deliberately cruel or hurtful way, showing a wish to harm or insult someone.

   Grammar: Goes after a verb of treatment: they treated him despitefully.

   Patterns

   • treat someone despitefully
   • use someone despitefully

   The old story says the servants were treated despitefully by their master.

   He spoke despitefully of the neighbors who had helped him.

   In the old text, travelers were used despitefully by the guards.

Common combinations

treat despitefully

The tenants were treated despitefully by their landlord.

use despitefully

The verse speaks of people who use others despitefully.

speak despitefully

He spoke despitefully about his former friends.

act despitefully

The tyrant acted despitefully toward his critics.

Synonyms and how they differ

spitefully

Spitefully is the normal modern word, while despitefully sounds archaic and mostly appears in older texts.

maliciously

Maliciously stresses an intent to do harm, and it is more common in legal and everyday contexts.

cruelly

Cruelly is more general and need not involve a wish to hurt out of spite.

vindictively

Vindictively suggests revenge for a past wrong, which despitefully does not always imply.

Opposites

Word family

despite noun

old word for malice or contempt

despiteful adjective

full of spite, now rare

despitefulness noun

the quality of spite

spite noun

a wish to hurt or annoy

Commonly confused: despitefully or despite? despitefully or spitefully?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “despitefully”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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