All 5 Uses
mischievous
in
Angelfall
(Auto-generated)
- They're barely out of their teens, tall and skinny with mischievous eyes.†
p. 118.4 *
- They both grin at me like mischievous little boys.†
p. 121.4
- His hair spikes out below him and his mischievous smile shows two missing teeth.†
p. 148.3
- I keep expecting him to turn around and flash me a mischievous grin but he walks stiff-backed and offers drinks to people.†
p. 192.6
- "I am," he says with a mischievous grin.†
p. 226.3
Definitions:
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(1)
(mischievous) playfully causing minor trouble; or describing the smile of someone doing soMuch less commonly, mischievous can reference real harm without any sense of fun. But in modern writing, that usage has largely shifted to other words like malicious, destructive, or damaging.
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(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) In law, mischievous references a property crime such as vandalism or graffiti. Very rarely, the word can reference someone or something causing serious damage.
In archaic literature mischievous often refers to bad behavior without any connotation of playfulness or of the harm being minor.