Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
meanspirited \mean"spir`it*ed\, mean-spirited \mean"-spir`it*ed\, a.
Of a mean spirit; petty; small-minded; base; groveling; -- of people. -- Mean"-spir`it*ed*ness, n.
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Done for malevolent reasons; -- of deeds and actions.
Syn: base, contemptible, currish, mean, meanspirited, scurvy.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also meanspirited, 1690s, from mean (adj.1) + -spirited. Ancient Greek had the same image in mikropsykhos.
Wiktionary
a. Having a base, nasty, petty, or malevolent disposition. alt. Having a base, nasty, petty, or malevolent disposition.
Usage examples of "mean-spirited".
There was a culture in the Bureau that dismissed the work of earnest brick agents like Nancy Floyd and her colleagues in Minneapolis while rewarding the mean-spirited incompetence of supervisors.
So you could say that just one person brought on the entire mean-spirited Engler Revolution in Michigan.
He is a mean-spirited man, and it has come to my attention that he has been making inquiries from Lubeck as to yur reasons for being here in Hamburg.
He was religious right, Christian conservative, archconservative, far right, mean-spirited, wing nut, and divisive.
He knew what most of the audience at the PEN panel discussion would have thought - Oh, yes, great picture for Rich Kinnell he probably wants it for inspiration, a feather to tickle his tired old gorge into one more fit of projectile vomiting-but most of those folks were ignoramuses, at least as far as his work went, and what was more, they treasured their ignorance, cossetted it the way some people inexplicably treasured and cossetted those stupid, mean-spirited little dogs that yapped at visitors and sometimes bit the paperboy's ankles.
The partners now had enough money for a serious down payment on an oyster dredger, but before they made a contract with any boatbuilder, Jake wanted Tim to sail aboard one of the Deal Island innovations, so they shipped with a mean-spirited gentleman from that island, and Tim came home convinced that no boat but one of that type would satisfy him.
I hate to seem mean-spirited, but I was growing tired of listening to the romantic agonies of his spirit, while forking out to sustain the wants of his flesh.
The knave of clubs was someone who would wound with words: one who libeled or slandered, or who assaulted you with mean-spirited and unjust criticism.
Quite quickly after that the subrosa drumbeats faded into obscurity and the gossip mongers of Foggy Bottom turned to fresher, juicier items to slice and dice in their mean-spirited way.
Maybe she'll have a better chance to grow up happy, out of their mean-spirited influence.
Parking was not allowed in the town itself-there were mean-spirited towaway warnings everywhere-so I paid a couple of bucks to leave my car with several hundred others out in the middle of nowhere and trudged a long way into town.
Restored from zombiehood, he is sly, secretive, rude, caustic, stubborn, foul-tongued, mean-spirited, and resentful, in other words - in the world according to Chipper - a blood brother to the other old men who reside at Maxton's.