Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Disposed to seek revenge; revengeful.
- adj. Marked by or resulting from a desire to hurt; spiteful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Revengeful; given to revenge; indicating a revengeful spirit.
- Punitive; pertaining to or serving as punishment.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Disposed to revenge; prompted or characterized by revenge; revengeful.
- adj. obsolete Punitive.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. disposed to seek revenge or intended for revenge
- adj. showing malicious ill will and a desire to hurt; motivated by spite
Etymologies
- From Latin vindicta ("vengeance"), from vindico ("claim, vindicate"), from vindex ("defender"), + -ive. (Wiktionary)
- From Latin vindicta, vengeance, from vindex, vindic-, surety, avenger; see vindicate. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
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.”
“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:”
“Lying will not get you in the WH; to be vindictive is non-Christian.”
“So I called her vindictive, and then she just laughed at me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Rather then calling Sarah's book "setting the record straight", the media call it vindictive.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vindictive’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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@vcb.etym.prjct - SAT WORD DUMP - as ...
The words on this list SAT regulars that I haven't sorted and grouped yet. It's like my wordy holding pen. get it? holding the pen to write a word? HA! I love how lame my humor is.
iconoclast, glacial, agnostic, histrionic, treacly, contemptuous, captious, bombastic, bombast, perfidy, quiescence, sordid and 148 more...
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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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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 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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January 2012
bloviate, pastiche, apparat, facile, paroxysm, pique, bedfellow, pedigree, tutelage, protege, protégé, retroactive and 196 more...
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GRE
predilection, explicit, appeal, supplication, appealing, enchanting, ovation, pertinent, apropos, opportunely, applicable, germane and 381 more...
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GRE Study guide
Going through the Magoosh website, words I pulled from the verbal section. 2012.
magnanimous, correlate, anglicized, simulacrum, tantamount, obsequiousness, subterfuge, vehement, vociferous, benign, concomitant, veracity and 83 more...
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June Words
Words for June
connive, incessant, premeditated, malice, malicious, spite, vindictive, vindicate, vengeance, obstinately, assiduous, attentive and 14 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1856 more...
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And i thought my words were "bad"!
malevolent, machiavellian, duplicitous, deceitful, rancorous, spiteful, malignant, cunning, vindictive, tyrannical, imperious, despotic and 10 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 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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Personal Vocabulary List
All my favourite words that I come across!
veritable, incongruence, rigamorole, letcherous, revolting, repulsive, reputrid, rapatious, forays, guise, placate, paradigm and 1162 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for vindictive.

TeddyBear119 WHOAT! I never knew that vindictive meant to seek revenge! Nov 4, 2012
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