Adjacent Words

Mischievous definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

MIS'CHIEVOUS, a. Harmful; hurtful; injurious; making mischief; of persons; as a mischievous man or disposition.
1. Hurtful; noxious; as a mischievous thing.
2. Inclined to do harm; as a mischievous boy.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: naughtily or annoyingly playful; "teasing and worrying with impish laughter"; "a wicked prank" [syn: arch, impish, implike, mischievous, pixilated, prankish, puckish, wicked]
2: deliberately causing harm or damage; "mischievous rumors and falsehoods"

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: 14th century 1. harmful, injurious <mischievous gossip> 2. a. able or tending to cause annoyance, trouble, or minor injury b. irresponsibly playful <mischievous behavior> • mischievously adverb • mischievousness noun Usage: A pronunciation mis-?ch?-v?-?s and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century. Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers to Herbert Hoover. But both the pronunciation and the spelling are still considered nonstandard.

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 (of a person) disposed to mischief. 2 (of conduct) playfully malicious. 3 (of a thing) having harmful effects. Derivatives: mischievously adv. mischievousness n. Etymology: ME f. AF meschevous f. OF meschever: see MISCHIEF

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Mischievous Mis"chie*vous, a. Causing mischief; harmful; hurtful; -- now often applied where the evil is done carelessly or in sport; as, a mischievous child. ``Most mischievous foul sin.'' --Shak. This false, wily, doubling disposition is intolerably mischievous to society. --South. Syn: Harmful; hurtful; detrimental; noxious; pernicious; destructive. -- Mis"chie*vous*ly, adv. -- Mis"chie*vous*ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. A mischievous person likes to have fun by playing harmless tricks on people or doing things they are not supposed to do. She rocks back and forth on her chair like a mischievous child... ADJ • mischievously Kathryn winked mischievously. ADV: usu ADV with v 2. A mischievous act or suggestion is intended to cause trouble. ...a mischievous campaign by the press to divide the ANC... = malicious ADJ • mischievously That does not require 'massive' military intervention, as some have mischievously claimed. ADV: usu ADV with v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Hurtful, injurious, detrimental, pernicious, destructive, noxious, harmful. 2. Vicious, wicked, sinful, malicious. 3. Troublesome, vexatious, annoying, naughty.

Moby Thesaurus

annoying, arch, artful, bad, baleful, baneful, bothering, bothersome, corroding, corrosive, corrupting, corruptive, counterproductive, damaging, dangerous, deadly, deleterious, destructive, detrimental, devilish, disadvantageous, disserviceable, distressing, elfish, elvish, evil, foolish, foxy, frolicsome, full of mischief, harmful, hazardous, high-spirited, hurtful, ill, ill-behaved, impish, injurious, insidious, irking, irksome, knavish, larkish, lethal, malefic, malevolent, malicious, malign, malignant, misbehaving, mischief-loving, naughty, noisome, noxious, ominous, paw, perilous, pernicious, playful, poisonous, prankish, pranksome, pranky, precarious, prejudicial, puckish, rascally, risky, roguish, scampish, scapegrace, scatheful, sly, spiteful, sportive, toxic, trickish, tricksy, tricky, venenate, veneniferous, venenous, venomous, vexatious, vexing, vicious, virulent, waggish, wicked