mischief

noun mischiefs

1. uncountable Conduct that playfully causes petty annoyance. Drink led to mischief.

   Similar: delinquency, naughtiness, roguery, scampishness, atrociousness, awfulness, badness, corruption, corruptness, criminality, dacoity, depravity

2. countable A playfully annoying action. John's mischief, tying his shoelaces together, irked George at first.
3. collective, countable, uncountable A nest or pack of mice or rats. Kirac, the leader of the rats under his charge, speaks to the major through his telepathic abilities that manifested after the alien virus infected him and his mischief of rats.
4. archaic, uncountable Harm or trouble caused by an agent or brought about by a particular cause. She had mischief in her heart.
5. archaic, countable An injury or an instance of harm or trouble caused by a person or other agent or cause. It may end in her doing a great mischief to herself—and perhaps to others too.
6. countable, uncountable A criminal offence defined in various ways in various jurisdictions, sometimes including causing damage to another's property.
7. archaic, countable A cause or agent of annoyance, harm or injury, especially a person who causes mischief. To die like a man of honour, Sir Hargrave, you must have lived like one. You should be sure of your cause. But these pistols are too ready a mischief. Were I to meet you in your own way, Sir Hargrave, I should not expect, that a man so enraged would fire his over my head, as I should be willing to d

   Similar: bad boy, knave, rapscallion, rascal, rogue, antimodel, bad guy, baddie, bastard, beggar, blackguard, bounder

8. countable, euphemistic, uncountable The Devil; used as an expletive. What the mischief are you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you come from?
9. Australia, countable, uncountable Casual and/or flirtatious sexual acts.

Similar: agitation, annoyance, corruption, damage, demolition, destruction, detriment, disablement, disruption, evil, harm, hurt, ill, impairment, incapacitation, injury, nuisance, pique, ravage, sabotage, scathe, trouble, undoing, unmaking, vexation, weakening, wrong, badness, delinquincy, devilishness · Opposite: decorum, gentlemanliness, gentility, seemliness, sportsmanship, probity, propriety

verb mischiefs · mischiefing · mischiefed · mischieve

1. obsolete, transitive To do a mischief to; to harm. "Not now, Smee," Hook said darkly. "He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them."
2. obsolete, transitive To slander. And so it hath been divers times; Men mischiefing the Jews to excuse their own Wickedness: as to instance one Precedent in the time of a certain King of Portugal.