ˌbloody-ˈmindedness
[f. prec. + -ness.]
1. Inclination to bloodshed; bloodthirstiness, cruelty.
| 1789 G. Vassa Life I. v. 218 By the 329th Act, page 125, of the Assembly of Barbadoes, it is enacted ‘That..if any man shall out of wantonness, or only of bloody-mindedness..wilfully kill a negro..he shall pay into the public treasury fifteen pounds sterling’. 1822 Carlyle Let. July (1886) II. 108 The persecution of the Albigenses has little to distinguish it from other persecutions..except a darker tinge of bloody-mindedness. 1870 Lowell Study Wind. 214 What a difference between the straight-forward bloody-mindedness of Orestes and the metaphysical punctiliousness of the Dane. |
2. Perversity, contrariness, cantankerousness.
| 1910 Daily Chron. 15 Mar. 6/7 Sparrows..do not eat the flowerets of the larch, but merely peck them off out of sheer devilry and ‘bloodymindedness’. 1953 R. Lehmann Echoing Grove 69 They all agreed, too monstrous, your bloody-mindedness, insufferable rudeness to me. 1959 Spectator 19 June 875/1 We can only hope that the intransigence so far shown by both sides [in the printing dispute] will not develop into bloody-mindedness, as such disputes sometimes do. |