Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use vindictive in a sentence

12 example sentences · adjective

Vindictive means having a tendency to seek revenge when wronged, vengeful. Example: “The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver.”

Examples of vindictive by meaning

adjectiveHaving a tendency to seek revenge when wronged, vengeful.

  • The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver.1920 November 9, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Women in Love, New York, N.Y.: Privately printed [by Thomas Seltzer] for...
  • The victors will exact vindictive penalties and the losers of course will undertake to pay, but none of them realizes that money is going to do the most extraordinary things to them when they begin upon that.1933 September, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Introduction: The Dream Book of Dr. Philip Raven”, in The Shape of Things to Come, 1st American...

More sentences with vindictive

  • A vindictive little kitten who is still angry about an obliterated car, more like.2012, Molly Harper, Driving Mr. Dead, Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 139. From the entry obliterated
  • As Lon talked, his prejudices rose to the surface and his comments became more and more vindictive.2010, Tom Davy, The Map on the Chuck Wagon Canvas, page 158. From the entry start in on
  • He was a vicious male gossip, insatiably curious and vindictive without malice.1952, John Steinbeck, chapter 48, in East of Eden, London: Heinemann, page 456. From the entry gossip
  • None knew how vindictive or friendly toward business the Truman Administration would be.1948 December 13, “Sweet Reasonableness”, in Time. From the entry trip to the woodshed
  • We have some vindictive people as bosses, and you don’t want to be the target of their wrath.2018 February 18, Dawn Pine, “Strategies for Dealing with a Bad Boss”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), archived from…. From the entry boss
  • These vindictive ideas flowed through my head.2011 February 9, Silianise Moise, Life Is Not a Fairy Tale, but . . ., Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 145. From the entry freak
  • Elsewhere, the hounding of Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel laureate and founder of the Grameen Bank who briefly flirted with politics, was vindictive.2011 July 30, “Embraceable you”, in The Economist. From the entry hounding
  • I am willing to pay a fair amount, but not to be mulcted in that vindictive way, and nuts to the Hellfare State.2008, Norman T. Gates, Richard Aldington. From the entry hellfare
  • It succeeded in portraying environmentalists as guilt tripping, callous and vindictive – exactly the colours in which climate change deniers had been painting them for years.2011 May 12, David Burrows, Anna Simpson, Martin Wright, “Winning the persuasion game”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian, London…. From the entry guilt trip
  • S. mariners is Captain Ahab, the vindictive old salt who sailed the southern oceans screaming for more canvas, cursing tired crews, laughing wildly into the gale.1931 November 23, “Heroes: Almost Ahab”, in Time. From the entry old salt

Meaning of vindictive

  1. adjective Having a tendency to seek revenge when wronged, vengeful.
  2. adjective Punitive.

Full definition of vindictive

Questions about vindictive in a sentence

How do you use vindictive in a sentence?
Vindictive is used as an adjective. For example: “The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver.”
What is a short sentence with vindictive?
“These vindictive ideas flowed through my head.”
What does vindictive mean?
Vindictive means having a tendency to seek revenge when wronged, vengeful.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: vindictive (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use vindictive in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/vindictive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.