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Mean-spirited   Listen
adjective
mean-spirited, meanspirited  adj.  
1.
Of a mean spirit; petty; small-minded; base; groveling; of people.
2.
Done for malevolent reasons; of deeds and actions.
Synonyms: base, contemptible, currish, mean, meanspirited, scurvy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mean-spirited" Quotes from Famous Books



... a mean-spirited, selfish man. If he were not, he could not have talked as he did last night. Because you do not love him, Mildred, you cannot love such a man as that, if he were fifty times a ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... plays, which came and went in a stated order. The first thing in the spring, as soon as the frost began to come out of the ground, they had marbles which they played till the weather began to be pleasant for the game, and then they left it off. There were some mean-spirited fellows who played for fun, but any boy who was anything played for keeps: that is, keeping all the marbles he won. As my boy was skilful at marbles, he was able to start out in the morning with his toy, or the marble he shot with, and a commy, or a brown marble ...
— Boy Life - Stories and Readings Selected From The Works of William Dean Howells • William Dean Howells

... is contrasted with the mean-spirited Kays, who also gave rise to a tribe; and hence the saying concerning one absolutely inconsistent, "Art thou now Tamin and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... wither into the shadow of himself, now advancing one foot, now the other, now stooping and wriggling his shoulders, now fumbling with the buttons of his waistcoat, now clasping his hands together,—in short, he was the picture of a mean-spirited shuffling rascal in the very agonies of detection. To these appearances Bertram was totally inattentive,—being dragged on as it were by the current of his own associations. Indeed, although he addressed Glossin, he was not so much thinking ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott

... generations of fish-eating, purposeless life. Physical and moral decency usually go hand in hand, even in a state of nature. The Columbia tribes had no conception of either; they were in the same condition then as now, mean-spirited, and strangers to all those little delicacies of behavior that had distinguished the ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton

... mean-spirited hound!" cried this furious old worldling. "In justice to myself as his father—not in justice to HIM—I beg to ask you, Miss Verinder, what complaint you have to make of ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... they had their breakfast in bed, and did not rise till ten o'clock. Then they commonly walked out; but always found themselves very soon tired; when they would often sit down under a shady tree, and grieve for the loss of their carriage and fine clothes, and say to each other, "What a mean-spirited poor stupid creature our young sister is, to be so content with our low way of life!" But their father thought in quite another way: he admired the patience of this sweet young creature; for her sisters not only left her to do the whole work of the house, but made game ...
— Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know • Various

... Virtue, shall break out upon the World, from this TRIFLE (for such, I dare answer for the Author, His Modesty misguides him to think it).——No Applause therefore can be too high, for such Merit. And, let me abominate the contemptible Reserves of mean-spirited Men, who while they but hesitate their Esteem, with Restraint, can be fluent and uncheck'd in their Envy.——In an Age so deficient in Goodness, Every such Virtue, as That of this Author, is a salutary ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... sculptor will bring with it you have just been told; they amount to no more than being a worker with your hands, your whole prospects in life limited to that; you will be obscure, poorly and illiberally paid, mean-spirited, of no account outside your doors; your influence will never help a friend, silence an enemy, nor impress your countrymen; you will be just a worker, one of the masses, cowering before the distinguished, truckling to the eloquent, living ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata

... Christian theology as something too full of evasions and sophistries to be reasoned about. The men who made it, he felt sure, were like the men who taught it. The noblest could be damned, according to their theory, while almost any mean-spirited parasite could be saved by faith. "Faith," as he saw it exemplified in the faculty of the Temple school, was a substitute for most of the manly qualities he admired. Young men went into the ministry because they were timid or lazy and wanted society to take care of ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather

... eagerly ransacked, and title flaws found to be discoverable with the most delightful facility. There was a strong feeling too about this time in England that something good was to be made of Ireland. When tens of thousands of acres were to be had almost for the asking, who could be so slow or so mean-spirited as to ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless

... almost incredibly trivial Show of the Seven Deadly Sins he exclaims, 'O, how this sight doth delight my soul!' His practical jokes are unworthy of a court jester. The congealing of his blood agitates his superstitious mind far more than the terrible frankness of Mephistophilis. Miserably mean-spirited, he seeks to propitiate the wrath of the fiend by invoking his torments upon an old man whose disinterested appeal momentarily quickened his conscience into revolt. Finally, when we recall the words with which Tamburlaine ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... to be objectionable to any set of readers. If the public of the North see fit to ostracize me for this, I can only say that I would gladly sacrifice a thousand or two of dollars rather than retain the good-will of such a herd of dolts and mean-spirited scoundrels. I enclose the rewritten paragraph, and shall wish to see a proof of that ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... upon thee, mean-spirited wench!" said the Abbess; "is that a speech worthy of the name of Seyton, or of the mouth of a sister of this house, treading the path of election—and to be spoken before a stranger youth, too?—Go to my oratory, minion—there read your Hours ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... way thrown suspicion on Jack? Be it as it might, the game was up. With the usual wisdom which comes too late, Bob asked himself how he could ever have put trust in Bartley, whom he knew to be as mean-spirited a cur as breathed. On the chance of making things easier for himself, Jack would betray every secret in his possession. What hope was there of escaping capture, even if a hiding-place could be found for a day or two? If he had his ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... as they want to be called, are not only traitors to the greatest Irishmen of the age, but also mean-spirited tools of the Catholic bishops. A man may have proper respect for his faith, and may yet resent the dictation of his family priest. I admit his superior knowledge of spiritual matters, but I think ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... get the wrong sow by the ear &c. (blunder) 699. give a bias, give a twist; bias, warp, twist; prejudice, prepossess. Adj. misjudging &c. v.; ill-judging, wrong-headed; prejudiced &c. v.; jaundiced; shortsighted, purblind; partial, one-sided, superficial. narrow-minded, narrow-souled[obs3]; mean-spirited; confined, illiberal, intolerant, besotted, infatuated, fanatical, entete[Fr], positive, dogmatic, conceited; opinative, opiniative[obs3]; opinioned, opinionate, opinionative, opinionated; self-opinioned, wedded to an opinion, opinitre; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... incriminating. Anne held the situation in the hollow of her hand. Besides, as Rose pointed out, we couldn't very well return it without asking Julian, and we had both agreed that for the present Julian had better remain in ignorance of the incident. He would have thought it mean-spirited to allow any instance of Anne's generosity to remain concealed from the public. Rose and I were willing to allow ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various



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