wreakful
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English wrakeful, equivalent to wreak + -ful.
Adjective
[edit]wreakful (comparative more wreakful, superlative most wreakful)
- (poetic or obsolete) Vengeful; angry, furious.
- 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Ne any liv'd on ground that durst withstand / His dreadfull heast, much lesse him match in fight, / Or bide the horror of his wreakfull hand […].
- 1802, The Spirit of Anti-Jacobinism:
- He sinks, to every wreakful fiend a prey; / His bosom shut to each affection kind; [...]
- 1842, Thomas Miller, Rural Sketches:
- Unpropp'd, unsuccoured by stake or tree, / From wreakful storms' impetuous tyranny, [...]