different between enmity vs spite

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French enemisté, ennemistié, from Late Latin, Vulgar Latin *inim?cit?s, *inim?cit?tem, from Latin inim?cus (“enemy”); cognates: French inimitié, Portuguese inimizade, Spanish enemistad.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??n.m?.t?/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??n.m?.ti?/

Noun

enmity (countable and uncountable, plural enmities)

1. The quality of being an enemy; hostile or unfriendly disposition.
   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 242e.

     Some later Muses from Ionia and Sicily reckoned it safest to weave together both versions and say that that which is is both many and one, held together by both enmity and amity.

2. A state or feeling of opposition, hostility, hatred or animosity.

   • I merely repeat, remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways.

Quotations

Synonyms

Antonyms

• amity

Translations

References

• enmity in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• enmity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Notes:

English

Alternative forms

• spight (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• enPR: sp?t, IPA^(key): /spa?t/
• Rhymes: -a?t

Etymology 1

From a shortening of Middle English despit, from Old French despit (whence despite), from Latin d?spectum (“looking down on”), from Latin d?spici? (“to look down, despise”). Compare also Dutch spijt.

Noun

spite (usually uncountable, plural spites)

1. Ill will or hatred toward another, accompanied with the desire to irritate, annoy, or thwart; a want to disturb or put out another; mild malice

   Synonyms: grudge, rancor.

   He was so filled with spite for his ex-wife, he could not hold down a job.

   They did it just for spite.

   • 2014, Emivita, By Any Means Necessary: My Personal Struggles with Good and Evil

     sex with older men was a way to both internalize my spite towards my mother and to find security in a father figure I lacked with my own father.

   • Out of spite, the human beings pretended not to believe that it was Snowball who had destroyed the windmill: they said that it had fallen down because the walls were too thin.

2. (obsolete) Vexation; chagrin; mortification.

Translations

Verb

spite (third-person singular simple present spites, present participle spiting, simple past and past participle spited)

1. (transitive) To treat maliciously; to try to injure or thwart.

   She soon married again, to spite her ex-husband.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To be angry at; to hate.

   • The Danes, then […] pagans, principally spited places of religion.

3. (transitive) To fill with spite; to offend; to vex.

Related terms

• spiteful
• in spite of
• despite

Translations

See also

• malignant
• malicious

Etymology 2

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Preposition

spite

1. Notwithstanding; despite.

Anagrams

• IP set, piets, piste, septi-, stipe

Esperanto

Etymology

From English spite.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?spi.te/

Adverb

spite

1. in spite of
2. defiantly

Usage notes

Often used with the accusative or with the preposition al.

Derived terms

• spit
• spiti

Polish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?sp?i.t?/

Adjective

spite

1. inflection of spity:
   1. neuter nominative/accusative/vocative singular
   2. nonvirile nominative/accusative/vocative plural