as in cruel
feeling or showing a desire to cause harm or pain
a mean-spirited person He wrote a mean-spirited book review.
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Recent Examples of mean-spirited
While most are supportive, a fair number are critical, even mean-spirited.
—
Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 16 June 2023
Recent Examples of Synonyms for mean-spirited
Adjective
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The forest had taught him that city dwellers could often be regulated by cruel and rather unpredictable codes.—
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That Maduro is a cruel dictator is clear; that Trump intends more than just his arrest (such as taking their oil) is equally clear.—
Adjective
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Officials charged Damon Leanord of Pleasanton, Kansas, with interference with law enforcement, having a vicious dog at large and criminal desecration of a body in Linn County and abandonment of a corpse charges in Bates County, Missouri, after finding the child’s body at the bottom of a creek bed.—
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He was shocked in 2013 when he was struck by vicious bouts of vomiting.—
Adjective
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Thompson, meanwhile, savors every contemptuous glare and hateful retort Anna regularly supplies.—
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At best, both Labour and the Conservatives have spent political capital on an activist who has repeatedly expressed thoughtless and hateful views in public.—
Adjective
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The growth of passive investing, through index funds found in the 401(k) accounts of average Americans, has propped up the stock market while also potentially setting it up for a nasty fall.—
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Instead of this stuff that's raised overseas that's done in ways that doesn't have any checks, that it's got polluted water, it's being fed really nasty stuff, full of antibiotics, full of chemicals.—
Adjective
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Screams at the refs, unkind words hurled at McMillan as the team made its exit.—
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The end of the millennium was not unkind to Hart.—
Adjective
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So how will Stevie, who shares a bedroom with her obnoxious little brother, Elliot (Elias Janssen), keep the family together?—
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Various new characters join in on the fun, including Chris Elliott’s Riff Raff-style butler and Tori Spelling’s obnoxious try-hard friend, Alex.—
Adjective
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Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington and Andrew Scott play members of the spiteful holy man’s cult of personality.—
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Meester holds her cards close to her chest, leaving us to wonder whether Joanne is being spiteful and shallow (given her trajectory … probably) or whether this woman is really that unbearable.—
Adjective
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Thompson, meanwhile, savors every contemptuous glare and hateful retort Anna regularly supplies.—
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All of these flaws are conveniently overlooked by the purveyors of all of these instruments and done so in a way that is contemptuous of those who would contest it or even quibble with it.—
Cite this Entry
“Mean-spirited.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mean-spirited. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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