vindictive

From Latin vindicta (“vengeance”), from vindico (“claim, vindicate”), from vindex (“defender”), +‎ -ive.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /vɪnˈdɪk.tɪv/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪktɪv

vindictive (comparative more vindictive, superlative most vindictive)

1. Having a tendency to seek revenge when wronged, vengeful.
   • 1920, D. H. Lawrence, chapter 18, in Women in Love‎:

     The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver.

   • 1933, H. G. Wells, The Shape of Things to Come‎:

     The victors will exact vindictive penalties and the losers of course will undertake to pay, but none of them realizes that money is going to do the most extraordinary things to them when they begin upon that.

2. (obsolete) punitive

• vengeful, revengeful, nasty
• See also Thesaurus:vengeful

• vindictively
• vindictiveness

• vindicate
• vindication
• vindicator

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