spite

“Are you cutting off your nose to spite your face?”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

This was in spite of the fact that the 14th Amendment grants birthright citizenship to “all persons” who are born in the United States and subject to its laws.

From Slate ● Aug. 11, 2026

But as they began house hunting in April they quickly realized that, in spite of elevated listing prices and mortgage rates, the Peabody market was exceptionally hot.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 11, 2026

Insects are the most diverse and abundant group of animals on the planet, but in spite of this dominance they are the most threatened.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 29, 2026

In spite of the somber reason for the journey, everyone cheered up.

From "A Girl Named Disaster" by Nancy Farmer

“In this small, final, seemingly quiet but ultimately volcanic book of stories, Trevor denies and defies — maybe spites — the promise of decline,” Cynthia Ozick wrote here.

From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2020

These days, archbishops tend to have more Christian charity, while the petty spites and preposterous self-importance of their 1936 counterparts have been transferred to breakfast television presenters and so on.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 9, 2020

It is tune the old cold warrior hung up his spites.

From Time Magazine Archive

There are "get-out-of-my-sight" scenes that have not been witnessed since Bette Davis hung up her spites.

From Time Magazine Archive

Her time with Tariq’s family always felt natural to Laila, effortless, uncomplicated by differences in tribe or language, or by the personal spites and grudges that infected the air at her own home.

From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini

A sample: During the chorus, Swift proves once more that she’d make a fantastic BuzzFeed writer, telling us about yet another list she keeps of those who spited her.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 25, 2017

Last week Bush spited journalists who prematurely published the identity of his choice for Transportation Secretary by postponing the nomination of Chicago attorney Samuel Skinner.

From Time Magazine Archive

"I guess Lizzie's spited that Teacher's stoppin' at our place," giggled Rebecca, her pretty face rosy with pleasurable excitement in the turn affairs had taken.

From Tillie, a Mennonite Maid; a Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

Then she was some spited that I wouldn't buy a box of complexion lotion off of her.

From Tillie, a Mennonite Maid; a Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch by Helen Reimensnyder Martin

In actual life you are hot, tired, bored, headachy, "spited with fools," what not.

From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by George Saintsbury

In Free, she depicts it as a bored child, picking her up and putting her down, chewing her up and spiting her out "a hundred times a day".

From BBC ● Dec. 30, 2022

And spitting is still socially acceptable - be it chewing tobacco, sportsmen spiting on camera or Bollywood portrayals of men spitting while fighting each other.

From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2021

When James rejects the idea, Rhythm kidnaps Dom, spiting him away into a virtual “Serververse.”

From Washington Post ● Jul. 14, 2021

So do you not watch, to enlarge the collective spiting of him?

From New York Times ● Feb. 12, 2021

He couldn’t get his way this time—not after threatening their fives and sending them to make Achelous miserable for the sake of spiting Hera.

From "The Mark of Athena" by Rick Riordan