a. [f. as prec. + -ISH.] Resembling, or characteristic of, a fiend; superhumanly cruel and malignant.
1529. More, A Dialoge of Comfort against Tribulacion, II. Wks. 1187/1. This woman was so fiendyshe, that the Deuill perceyuinge her nature, put her in the mynde that she shoulde anger her husbande so sore, that she might geue him an occasion to kyll her, & than he should be hanged for her.
1798. Coleridge, Anc. Mar., VII. 6. Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VIII. x.
| Through the vampire corpse | |
| He thrust his lance; it fell, | |
| And howling with the wound, | |
| Its fiendish tenant fled. |
1823. Praed, Troubadour, II. 563.
| And Satan will grin with a fiendish glee, | |
| When he finds the Abbess has kept the key! |
1871. Freeman, Hist. Ess., Ser. I. 74. It is impossible to deny the fiendish brutalities practised by him [William Wallace] in England.
transf. 1836. Kingsley, Lett., I. 35. The wavy lightning glared over the sea with fiendish light.
Hence Fiendishly adv.; Fiendishness.
1613. Bp. Hall, An Holy Panegyrick, 39. Those Dames which vnder a cloke of modestie and deuotion hide nothing but pride, and fiendishnesse.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, II. xvii.
| The Sorceress look’d, and with a smile | |
| That kindled to more fiendishness | |
| Her hideous features. |
1879. Black, Macleod of Dare, viii. A calm and dignified silence is the best answer to the fiendishness of thirteen.
