Dictionary

smiteful en · ADJ

Etymology

From smite + -ful.

Meanings

1. Inclined toward smiting.
   • The authors of the Old Testament were people like us and struggled with their own human desires about the kind of God they would like to have, a God, perhaps, whose power would be sympathetic to me and 'smiteful' to those unsympathetic to me. 2002, Mark Allen, First Holy Communion, Burns & Oates, →ISBN, pages 8–9:
   • And one hopes the tornado passes overhead and does not touch us; one prays and wonders why God would particularly care to spare us and hopes, again, that all His reasons for not doing so, though perhaps justified, will not matter and that He will not be as smiteful and as bloodthirsty as He ordinarily appears when one hears of His activity once a week on Sunday. 2013, John Pritchard, Sailing to Alluvium, NewSouth Books, →ISBN, page 315:
   • Although there is no evidence that Taylor's is a vengeful, smiteful god, either. 2010, Karl E. Smith, Meaning, Subjectivity, Society: Making Sense of Modernity, Brill (2010), page 203 (footnote)

Forms