spite
n. uncountablen. a feeling of wanting to hurt or upset someone because you are angry with them. You often do something out of spite to get revenge for a small problem.
n. a malicious desire to harm, annoy, or humiliate another person, often arising from petty resentment. Frequently used in the prepositional phrase 'out of spite'.
He broke her favorite vase out of spite.
She refused to sign the divorce papers out of pure spite, even though she no longer wanted to be married.
The architect designed the narrow, windowless wall specifically to block his neighbor's view of the ocean, a classic example of a structure built entirely out of spite.
From Middle English spit, a shortening of despit (whence despite), from Old French despit, from Latin dēspectum (“looking down on”), from Latin dēspiciō (“to look down, despise”). Compare also North Frisian spīt, spīd (“regret”), Saterland Frisian Spiet (“regret, remorse”), West Frisian spyt (“regret”), Dutch spijt (“regret, remorse”), German Low German Spiet (“anger, regret, remorse”), German Spiet (“annoyance, vexation”), Swedish spit (“insult, outrage, annoyance”), Norwegian spit (“insult, outrage, annoyance”).
Commonly follows the preposition 'out of' to explain the motive for an action.
He did it in spite.He did it out of spite.While 'in spite of' is a common prepositional phrase meaning 'despite', the noun expressing malice is almost always preceded by 'out of'.