Definition of "spite" []

• Malicious ill will prompting an urge to hurt or humiliate. (noun)
• An instance of malicious feeling. (noun)
• To show spite toward. (verb-transitive)
• To vent spite on. (verb-transitive)
• To fill with spite. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And yet, in spite of that -- in _spite_ of that, I say -- we have thus far held the enemy at a standstill."
• "And yet in the very face of these plain, incontrovertible, all-visible facts, we go on from year to year with the base system of Academy teaching, in spite of which every one of these men has risen: I say _in spite_ of the entire method and aim of our art-teaching."
• ""Now I arise," any extraordinary accession to the business, as it is technically called, of the scene: for I do not think that his resuming his magical robe was in any way necessary to account for the slumber which overcomes Miranda, "in spite of her interest in her father's story," and which Mr. Collier says the commentators have endeavored to account for in various ways; but putting "_because_ of her interest in her father's story," instead of "_in spite_ of," I feel none of the difficulty which beset the commentators, and which Mr. Collier conjures by the stage-direction which makes Prospero resume his magic robe at"