Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Causing mischief.
  • adjective Playful in a naughty or teasing way.
  • adjective Troublesome; irritating.
  • adjective Causing harm, injury, or damage.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Producing or tending to produce mischief or harm; injurious; deleterious; hurtful.
  • Fond of mischief; full of tricks; teasing or troublesome: as, a mischievous boy.
  • Synonyms Destructive, detrimental. See injury.
  • Roguish.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Causing mischief; harmful; hurtful; -- now often applied where the evil is done carelessly or in sport.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Causing mischief; injurious.
  • adjective Troublesome, cheeky, badly behaved.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective deliberately causing harm or damage
  • adjective naughtily or annoyingly playful

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English mischevous, from mischef, mischief; see mischief.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Anglo-Norman meschevous, from Old French meschever, from mes- ("mis-") + chever ("come to an end") (from chef ("head")).

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Examples

Comments

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  • It would be mischievous of you to pronounce this word miss-CHEE-vee-us when you know how much I hate that.

    December 9, 2006

  • Three syllables only.

    November 8, 2009