Definition of "mischief" []

• Behavior that causes discomfiture or annoyance in another. (noun)
• An inclination or tendency to play pranks or cause embarrassment. (noun)
• One that causes minor trouble or disturbance: The child was a mischief in school. (noun)
• Damage, destruction, or injury caused by a specific person or thing: The broken window was the mischief of vandals. (noun)
• The state or quality of being mischievous. (noun)

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.

• "I. v.51 (423, 6) You wait on nature's mischief!] _Nature's mischief_ is mischief done to nature, violation of nature's order committed by wickedness."
• "Sometimes the things he did in the house were what we call mischief because they annoy us, such as hammering the woodwork to pieces, tearing bits out of the leaves of books, working holes in chair seats, or pounding a cardboard box to pieces."
• "The one compensation for all this mischief is the rich additions to the apologetical and critical literature of the books of the New Testament, and the earliest history of the Christian Church, which it has drawn from the pens of Thiersch, Ebrard, and many others."