spight

English

Etymology 1

Noun

spight (plural spights)

1. Alternative form of speight

Etymology 2

Noun

spight (uncountable)

1. Obsolete spelling of spite
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I‎, published 1921:

     Her doubtfull words made that redoubted knight Suspect her truth: yet since no' untruth he knew, Her fawning love with foule disdainefull spight 475 He would not shend; but said, Deare dame I rew, That for my sake unknowne such griefe unto you grew.

   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, , page 122, column 1:

     […] when ſpight of comorand deuouring Time, / Th' endeuour of this preſent breath may buy: / That honour which ſhall bate his ſcythes keene edge, / And make vs heyres of all eternitie.

   • 1706, Various, The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony= Responses from Men‎:

     When I found Cuckolds to Encrease apace, I Marry'd one with such an Ugly Face That one wou'd thought the Devil wou'd but grotch So foul a Figure as my Wife to touch; Yet being at a Friendly Club one Night, A Raskal came and Cuckol'd me for spight.

   • 1768, Susannah Minific Gunning, Barford Abbey‎:

     --Nothing did I enjoy on the road;--in spight of my endeavours, tears stream'd from my eyes incessantly;--even the fine prospects that courted attention, pass'd unnotic'd.

   • 1789, Hester Lynch Piozzi, Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I‎:

     There was music; and the door being left at jar, as we call it, I watched the wretched servant who staid in the antichamber, and found that he was listening in spight of sorrow and starving.

Verb

spight (third-person singular simple present spights, present participle spighting, simple past and past participle spighted)

1. Obsolete spelling of spite