From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishspitespite1 /spaɪt/ ●●○ W3 noun [uncountable] 1 → in spite of something2 CRUELa feeling of wanting to hurt or upset people, for example because you are jealous or think you have been unfairly treatedout of spite (=because of spite) She broke it just out of spite.pure/sheer spite (=spite and nothing else)3 → in spite of yourself
Examples from the Corpus
spite• Agelong Hindu cruelty to his unhappy brethren filled Ambedkar with anger and spite.• Gerald's feelings of injustice turned to bitterness and spite.• Biblical movies usually wind up epic in scope in spite of every effort to keep them small.• In spite of his other fencing skills, Richie had never quite mastered the post hammer.• In spite of the furor the codicil caused, life went on much as before.• In spite of the vote for Clinton in 1992, it is that second personality that has been in the ascendant recently.• Sometimes the pirates would sink a boat out of spite for wasting their time.• She quit college and worked as a waitress out of spite towards her parents.• Ignore what Martin says. It's pure spite.• This is not to say that spite, malice or dishonesty may not exist; they clearly can.pure/sheer spite• Or were they keeping me here out of sheer spite?• They wanted to peck you all over, out of sheer spite.spitespite2 verb [transitive only in infinitive] UPSETto deliberately annoy or upset someone The neighbours throw things over the garden wall just to spite us. → cut off your nose to spite your face at cut → See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
spite• Now he's asking to keep the dog just to spite his ex-wife.• Pretty belonged in this country to spite La Bruja.• To spite me, Edusha talked of him continually.• We can be cutting off our noses to spite our faces if dealers aren't making enough money to carry on.• He lives just to get back in office to spite the people.just to spite• You know what he's like ... I wouldn't put it past him to say yes just to spite me.• Disappointed protesters complained that the government had reformed the tax just to spite them.Origin spite1 (1200-1300) despite (noun) ((13-20 centuries)); → DESPITE 