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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Disposed to seek revenge; revengeful.
  2. adj. Marked by or resulting from a desire to hurt; spiteful.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Revengeful; given to revenge; indicating a revengeful spirit.
  2. Punitive; pertaining to or serving as punishment.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Having or showing a strong or unreasoning desire for revenge.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Disposed to revenge; prompted or characterized by revenge; revengeful.
  2. adj. Punitive.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. disposed to seek revenge or intended for revenge
  2. adj. showing malicious ill will and a desire to hurt; motivated by spite

Etymologies

  1. From Latin vindicta, vengeance, from vindex, vindic-, surety, avenger; see vindicate.

Examples

  • “I realize that the word vindictive is a little strong for his comment to David, but there does seem to be some rancor coming from something.”

    Never apologize

  • “And then the constant problem: how informed, smart, generous, dumb, ignorant or vindictive is the population, and what timeline do they consider — this year, or this century? bob h says:”

    Matthew Yglesias » Size Matters

  • “Lying will not get you in the WH; to be vindictive is non-Christian.”

    Schmidt calls Palin claims 'total fiction'

  • “So I called her vindictive, and then she just laughed at me.”

    hamletwildie Diary Entry

  • “He painted in strong terms the incapacity, and what he called the vindictive and treacherous disposition, of the king; and declared, that to liberate him from the confinement under which he was now placed, would be to expose to certain death, a princess, who, by her wisdom and courage, had been the salvation of the state.”

    Coronation Anecdotes

  • “More than forty years of strife and struggle with the whisper that, by whatever name she called her vindictive pride and rage, nothing through all eternity could change their nature.”

    Little Dorrit

  • “If her campaign was going to leak something like this, they’d do it anonymously, since this just makes her look vindictive, and making Hillary look vindictive is what Fox does, not what her campaign does.”

    Waldo Jaquith - Fox News caught lying about Sen. Obama.

  • “Rather then calling Sarah's book "setting the record straight", the media call it vindictive.”

    Schmidt calls Palin claims 'total fiction'

  • “Again, she lied with good reason: to avoid being identified as a vindictive political power player who used the F.B.I. to ruin the lives of people standing in the way of juicy patronage.”

    Clintons Release 2000-2006 Returns: Earned $110 Million, Paid $33 Million In Taxes

  • “He had told Daryl himself with what some might call vindictive relish.”

    Simon & Schuster: Every Breath You Take

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Comments

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  • Kristianto2010 Our wrath tends to be vindictive and punitive. God’s wrath is untainted by self-interest and tempered by mercy. His wrath can even be His relentless love that brings our antagonists to repentance and faith. ODB May 18, 2011. Mar 17, 2011

‘vindictive’ has been looked up 2466 times, loved by 2 people, added to 67 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 19.