mean-spirited

• mean spirited, meanspirited

mean-spirited (comparative more mean-spirited, superlative most mean-spirited)

1. Having a base, nasty, petty, or malevolent disposition; tawdry.
   • 1877, Edward Payson Roe, chapter 15, in A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century:

     My old acquaintances would sneer at me as a mean-spirited cur, whose best exploit was to get in jail.

• meanspiritedly
• meanspiritedness

• “mean-spirited”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “mean-spirited”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary, 1987-1996.