vituperative

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
20
Words With Friends
24
Letters
12
Pronunciation
/vɪˈt͡ʃuːpɹətɪv/
See all 6 pronunciations
/vɪˈt͡ʃuːpɹətɪv/ · /vaɪˈt͡ʃuːpɹətɪv/ · /vɪˈtjuːpɹətɪv/ · /vaɪˈtjuːpɹətɪv/ · /vəˈtuːpɚətɪv/(US) · /vaɪˈtuːpɚətɪv/(US)

Definition of vituperative

1 sense · 1 part of speech · etymology included

adj

  1. Marked by harsh abuse; abusive, often with ranting or railing.
    “Floris gave the play a vituperative review laced with frequent personal insults.”
    “[…] ten times in a day calling the child of his prayers TRISTRAM!—Melancholy dissyllable of sound! which, to his ears, was unison to Nincompoop, and every name vituperative under heaven.”
    “[…] Lady Mary saw as clearly into the bodies, and I believe souls, of every servant who approached her, as if they had been cased in chrystal. And she saw so many foulnesses there, and so many aberrations, that Lady Mary’s language was almost wholly moral and vituperative.”
    “...and there were few words of vituperative abuse furnished by a lady's vocabulary (and even some beyond it) that were not launched upon his head, as a "city tradesman," that of the "puling baby," his wife, his flirting sister and her wittol husband;...”
    “1875, William Gifford, footnote to Act IV, Scene 2 of Every Man in His Humour in The Works of Ben Jonson, London: Bickers & Son, Volume I, p. 106, […] our ancestors, who were not very delicate, nor, generally speaking, much overburthened with respect for the feelings of foreigners, had a number of vituperative appellations derived from their real or supposed ill qualities, of many of which the precise import cannot now be ascertained.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Formed from vituperātus, perfect passive participle of Latin vituperō (“to blame, to censure”) + -ive; by surface analysis, vituperate + -ive.

Words you can make from vituperative

200+ playable · top: PRIVATIVE (17 pts)

Best play privative 17 points

10-letter words

1 word

9-letter words

2 words

8-letter words

3 words

7-letter words

9 words

6-letter words

36 words

5-letter words

65 words

4-letter words

69 words

3-letter words

14 words

Find your best play with vituperative

See every word you can make from a set of letters that includes vituperative, or browse word lists you can mine for high-scoring plays.