spite
part of speech
noun (spite; uncountable); verb (spite, spites, spited, spiting); preposition phrase (in spite of)
meaning for a pupil
1) Spite is a wish to hurt, annoy or upset someone on purpose: he broke it out of spite. tree →
2) To spite someone is to do something just to annoy or upset them. tree →
3) In spite of means «even though» or «without being stopped by»: we played in spite of the rain. tree →
sense in the lessons
Stories and feelings: a character who acts «out of spite» is being mean on purpose; it shows a nasty side. Everyday life: «cut off your nose to spite your face» means hurting yourself while trying to hurt someone else. Grammar: «in spite of» and «despite» join two ideas that seem opposite.
examples
- She hid my pencil case out of spite. tree →
- In spite of the rain, we went to the beach. tree →
- He refused to help just to spite his brother. tree →
- Don't let spite ruin your friendship. tree →
- We won in spite of having only ten players. tree →
- Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. tree →
- The witch laughed with spite. tree →
- Our Mayblossom will be happy in spite of her predictions.’ tree →
note
Uncountable noun. «In spite of» is three words; «despite» is one word and has no «of» (despite the rain, not despite of). Adjective: spiteful (mean on purpose).
In the corpora
- Aristotle said courage is doing the right thing in spite of fear.
- And if in spite of these things ye will not be corrected unto Me, but will walk contrary unto Me;
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «spite» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.