- vindictive
- vindictive, revengeful, vengeful are close synonyms often used interchangeably to mean showing or motivated by a desire for vengeance. Distinctively vindictive tends to stress this reaction as inherent in the nature of the individual and, therefore, is especially applicable when no specific motivating grievance exists{
there was nothing vindictive in his nature; but, if revenge came his way, it might as well be good— Stevenson
}The term can imply a persistent emotion or a tendency to seek revenge for real or fancied wrongs or slights, sometimes with implacable malevolence, sometimes with spiteful malice{a vindictive man will look for occasions of resentment— James Martineau
}{his zeal . . . was mingled with a vindictive hatred of the Puritans, which did him little honor either as a statesman or as a Christian— Macaulay
}{it is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive— Maugham
}but occasionally it implies no more than a punitive or retributive intent{a vindictive purpose,—a purpose to punish you for your suspicion— Cowper
}{the prison sentence handed down by a court that was more puzzled than vindictive was mild— Purdy
}{the punishments in Dante's Inferno, though seldom devoid of a certain horrible appropriateness, are essentially vindictive in their nature. Retributive punishment is the essential of medieval justice— Cohen
}Revengeful and vengeful are more likely to suggest the state of one specifically provoked to action and truculently ready to seek revenge{no creature is so revengeful as a proud man who has humbled himself in vain— Macaulay
}{such a close farmer, as to grudge almost the seed to the ground, whereupon revengeful Nature grudged him the crops which she granted to more liberal husbandmen— Thackeray
}{knowing that by one word—Yes or Forgive or Love—she might have . . . released all of the false and vengeful and troubling demons right up into the encompassing air of night, and everything would be right again— Styron
}{to some vengeful people the treaty seemed too easy upon Germany; to many liberals it seemed too harsh— Nevins & Commager
}Additionally revengeful and especially vengeful can apply to an agent or weapon by which vengeance is won{may my hands . . . never brandish more revengeful steel— Shak.
}{provide thee proper palfries, black as jet, to hale thy vengeful wagon swift away— Shak.
}{they unnerve us with vengeful roar of wheel— Lewisohn
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
