Spite is the small mean wish to hurt or annoy someone, with nothing to be gained from it. The neighbour who parks across your gate because you once complained about his hedge.
It lives in the phrase out of spite, as in she only said it out of spite, and in the verb: he sold the house cheap just to spite his brother. Now the trap. In spite of has nothing to do with meanness; it simply means despite. In spite of the rain, we walked into town. Learners who know the noun read cruelty into that phrase and there is none. There is also the old warning about cutting off your nose to spite your face, which is hurting yourself in the act of getting at someone else.
1nounspiteA mean wish to hurt, annoy or upset someone.
“He left the gate open out of pure spite.”
synonyms: malice, meanness
2verbdeliberatelyTo do something deliberately to hurt or annoy someone.
“She wore the red dress to spite her sister.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
spite is a feeling.
Also accepted in games: malice
Spite is despite with the front worn off. Middle English shortened despit, which came from Old French despit and Latin despectum, looking down on, into a short form spit that became spite. The scorn never left: to act out of spite is still to look down on someone.
Proto-Indo-European
*speḱ-
Latin
dēspectum — looking down on
Old French
despit
Middle English
spit
English, today
spite
From Middle English spit, a shortening of despit (whence despite), from Old French despit, from Latin dēspectum (“looking down on”), from Latin dēspiciō (“to look down, despise”). Compare also frr spīt, spīd (“regret”), stq Spiet (“regret, remorse”), West Frisian spyt (“regret”), Dutch spijt (“regret, remorse”), German Low German Spiet (“anger, regret, remorse”), German Spiet (“annoyance, vexation”), Swedish spit (“insult, outrage, annoyance”), Norwegian spit (“insult, outrage, annoyance”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA