Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Tending to rouse ill will, animosity, or resentment: invidious accusations.
- adj. Containing or implying a slight; discriminatory: invidious distinctions.
- adj. Envious.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Envious; causing or arising from envy.
- Enviable; desirable.
- Prompted by or expressing or adapted to excite envious dislike or ill will; offensively or unfairly discriminating: as, invidious distinctions or comparisons.
- Hence Hateful; odious; detestable.
- Synonyms Invidious, Offensive. Invidious, having lost its subjective sense of envious, now means producing or likely to produce ill feeling because bringing persons or their belongings into contrast with others in an unjust or mortifying way: as, an invidious comparison or distinction. The ill feeling thus produced would be not envy, but resentment, on account of wounded pride. Offensive is a general word, covering invidious and all other words characterizing that which gives offense.
Wiktionary
- adj. offensively or unfairly discriminating
- adj. causing ill will towards the actor; causing offense.
- adj. of a thing causing envy or ill will towards the possessor
- adj. envious, jealous
- adj. obsolete Hateful; odious; detestable
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Envious; malignant.
- adj. obsolete Worthy of envy; desirable; enviable.
- adj. Likely to or intended to incur or produce ill will, or to provoke envy or resentment; hateful; offensive.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. containing or implying a slight or showing prejudice
Etymologies
- Latin invidiōsus, from invidia ("envy, ill will"), from in- ("upon") + videō ("I see"). (Wiktionary)
- From Latin invidiōsus, envious, hostile, from invidia, envy; see envy. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“And what you call invidious ghettos were great defences, they were havens, oases of peace and respect.”
The Guardian: Is religion a force for good... or would we be happier without God?
“Clearly Dewey believed that political and economic conditions im modern societies encouraged an "alienation" from the aesthetic qualities of an "act of production," and to that extent Dewey's insistence that distinctions between fine and useful art are invidious is a politically-implicated gesture.”
“I do think the propensity of Americans to engage in invidious discrimination really has diminished, and diminished to the point of where much of the 1964 Act is unnecessary.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » So a Libertarian and a Liberal Walk into a Bar
“Yet again invidious comparisons are made with our continental neighbours whose milk consumption, in part because of very different climatic conditions, is overwhelmingly of UHT milk.”
“Alternatively, Congress should have more leeway to fashion remedies because the states are more likely to be engaging in invidious discrimination where laws or practices touching upon suspect classifications are concerned.”
“This paper had been particularly disagreeable concerning the “dividend-cooking” system of certain of the Comstock mines, at the same time calling invidious attention to safer investments in California stocks.”
“This paper had been particularly disagreeable concerning the "dividend-cooking" system of certain of the Comstock mines, at the same time calling invidious attention to safer investments in California stocks.”
“dividend-cooking" system of certain of the Comstock mines, at the same time calling invidious attention to safer investments in California stocks.”
“As Thorsten Veblen taught us with the notion of invidious comparison, in a product category where absolute quality is hard to measure—wines, coffee, supercars—people assume the more expensive item is somehow intrinsically better.”
The Wall Street Journal: Nissan GT-R: A 'Halo Car' With Devil's Horns
“What one person calls natural preference another calls invidious, immoral, or bigotry.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Are “Ladies’ Nights” Discriminatory?
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘invidious’.
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sdamle1
echt
echt, apocalypse, resurgence, forthright, logorrhea, mercurial, torrid, exorcise, obscure, intrusive, morose, vindictive and 100 more...
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GRE Barron's 800
abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abject, abjure, abscission, abscond, abstemious, abstinence, abysmal, accretion and 787 more...
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words 1
Traduce, Ramify, precipitous, rapture, adumbrate, knell, smolder, vagary, choleric, sibylline, hypocritical, jejune and 185 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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From reading
Collected from reading
venerate, reprobate, reticent, adoration, ethereal, ephemeral, equivocal, contumacious, heinous, solicitous, agnostic, aberration and 335 more...
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Jesse's random
bathos, dragoman, tessellated, escutcheon, eikon, mondaine, basilisk, ciborium, rubric, machicolation, jet, defalcation and 198 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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phrontistery - i
from phrontistery.info
iamatology, iamb, ianthine, iatraliptic, iatramelia, iatrarchy, iatrochemistry, iatrogenic, iatrology, iatromathematics, iatrophobia, ibidem and 510 more...
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cicatrix
scar tissue
minatory, naira, Cluniac, embracive, prolix, hierophant, timorous, adduce, veracious, dysphoric, sang-froid, vitiate and 505 more...
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July
vapulate, cattywampus, oneiric, petrichor, dithyramb, lea, dreadnaught, haruspex, caryatid, stentorian, cynosure, lunula and 22 more...
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SAT Words
Know these common SAT words
taciturn, docile, expedient, superfluous, eclectic, impromptu, dogmatic, invidious, rhetoric, tenacious, pretentious, parsimony and 14 more...
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wit
with wit mess (between less & ness)
wit, wot, wote, wost, wist, weeting, sense, wite, witticism, insulse, wittiness, wittiness witness and 34 more...
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Reading Vocab
ulterior, warrant, syllogism, precious, impiety, maroon, aigrette, batiste, topsy-turvy ago, midnight crush, cantankerous, slovenly and 180 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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The best words
dd
insipid, insouciant, interdict, insularity, internecine, inveigle, invidious, irresolute, jollity, irascible, libretto, promulgate and 34 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for invidious.
thesefourchildren Bacon and Descartes' identification of logic with dialectic seems to have an intentionally invidious significance." - Great Ideas, p.798 Jul 24, 2012
seanahan It has to be mal-uh-pro-phobia. Jul 10, 2007
slumry Ha! An old joke that is new to me. Jul 10, 2007
reesetee Sounds like that old joke that asks why the word "lisp" has an "s" in it. ;-) Jul 10, 2007
uselessness Woah, how do you pronounce that? I'm afraid of saying it wrong. ;-) Jul 10, 2007
oroboros malaprophobia? Jul 10, 2007
uselessness It also carries the connotation of dyslexic speech. ;-) Jul 10, 2007
slumry I agree, dyslogophobia is good. It sounds *real*. Jul 10, 2007
reesetee Ooh, I like u's suggestion better. Jul 10, 2007
slumry Okay, maybe maldyslogophobia. But I would be afraid to say it. ;-) Jul 10, 2007
reesetee Malogophobia? ;-> Jul 10, 2007
uselessness dyslogophobia? ;-) Jul 10, 2007
slumry Because it reminds me of insidious, I am chary of using this word--fear of misspeaking.
I need a word for "fear of misspeaking." Help me, Wordies! Jul 10, 2007