Word.ws English Dictionary

mean streak

mean streak noun: a defect in character characterized by persistent nastiness, viciousness, or malevolence.

Noun

mean streak (plural mean streaks)

  1. (idiomatic) A defect in character characterized by persistent nastiness, viciousness, or malevolence.
    • "He's worse than mischievous," Mr. Lane assured her sourly. "There's a mean streak in that family."1911, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, chapter 1, in The Crux
    • The film's considerable taste for graphic, noisy violence becomes clear during this tumultuous opening. So does its mean streak, as the Colonel delivers outrageous insults to one and all.1993 May 14, Janet Maslin, “Film: A Western in the Hands of a Revisionist”, in New York Times, retrieved 14 Sep 2017

Forms of mean streak

pluralmean streaks

Questions about mean streak

What does mean streak mean?
Mean streak means a defect in character characterized by persistent nastiness, viciousness, or malevolence.
What part of speech is mean streak?
Mean streak is a noun.
What is the plural of mean streak?
The plural of mean streak is mean streaks.

Words near mean streak in the dictionary

  1. mean spirited
  2. mean square
  3. mean squares
  4. mean standard
  5. mean standards
  6. mean streak
  7. mean streaks
  8. mean streets
  9. mean sun
  10. mean suns
  11. mean survival time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mean streak (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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