2025.06.26
1.
verb
: to (deliberately?) hurt, annoy, or offend (a person).
: to (intentionally?) annoy, upset, or hurt (a person):
2.
noun
: a strong desire to hurt, annoy, or offend (a person).
: a feeling of anger toward another person that makes someone want to annoy, upset, or hurt them, however small.
: the act of petty ill will or hatred with the disposition to irritate, annoy, or thwart.
Example:
In spite of our differences, we find a way to move on and collaborate.
Etymology
The noun version of spite dates back to circa 1300 as a shortened form of “despite.” Variations appeared in early Dutch, German, and Swedish languages. “Despite” came from Old French, meaning “scorn” or “contempt.”1
Antonym: altruism | al·tru·ism |ˈalˌtro͞oˌizəm
noun
: the practice of selfless concern for the wellbeing of others.
: the act of taking care of others without expecting anything in return.
: a form of enlightenment when you give to others and don’t need anything in return, though perhaps this is unattainable to humans.
Discourse
In a recent Freakonomics Radio show episode, “What Do Medieval Nuns and Bo Jackson Have in Commmon,” host Steven Dubner edits an episode from 2013 to further examine “whether spite pays—and if it even exists.” Through opening polemic space for the question, “How do you know if someone is intentionally hurting you?” Dubner interviews his co-author, Steven Levitt, and finds the answer in the antonym.
Levitt: “What I would say about spite, to try, I would say this, to know that an act is spite, you have to be inside the head of the perpetrator. Because the idea of spite is that it’s being done without benefit. But it’s interesting because one of the first premises of economics is you can never really know what other people are thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Instead, we focus on what they do. And so consequently, my view is forget about what’s going on inside of other people’s heads. You’ll probably never know what it is and focus on what they’re actually doing.”
Dubner: Do you see altruism as sort of the flip side of the coin to spite and therefore not quite real?
Levitt: Altruism is exactly the flip side of spite in the sense that there are acts which very well could be altruistic but equally could be done in a perfectly self-interested way.
Listen to the full show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Music Accompaniment
“Hurt” by Arlo Parks
Watch the official music video.
Be the antonym.
Definitions sourced from Cambridge Dictionary, Freakonomics Radio, Merriam-Webster, and Oxford Languages.
- “Origin and history of spite.” etymonline. https://www.etymonline.com/word/spite. (Webpage) ↩︎