spiteful.

Deliberately hurtful out of ill will, often over a small grievance.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• spiteful remark
• spiteful gesture

On the page

She regretted the spiteful remark as soon as it landed.

Usage notes

Primary category: psychology / human behavior. Forms: Comparative more spiteful; superlative most spiteful when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: character, behavior. Commonness: moderately common.