(a.) Causing mischief; harmful; hurtful; -- now often applied where the evil is done carelessly or in sport; as, a mischievous child.
Example Sentences:
(1) The appearance of a band with lean, spiky songs, high cheekbones and excellent trousers was therefore the cause of considerable excitement, to which they mischievously alluded in the title of their debut album, Is This It.
(2) In response, the ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, said the critics were "mischievous" and the party should be allowed to run its own affairs.
(3) You don't have to be against the minority of SAHMBY (stay-at-home mothers by choice) to consider their involvement in this debate a complete, and sometimes mischievous, distraction.
(4) It hasn’t helped that one mischievous customer appears to have added a crease to the carton on the right to make it look even more like a penis.
(5) "I want to reassure my friend Eduardo that there is no chance of me hanging on to the Olympic flag at the closing ceremony", joked Johnson, before adding mischievously "As protocol demands I will be handing it over to Eduardo — probably."
(6) Three seasons in the media spotlight in Madrid have clearly done him no harm, and when a potentially mischievous question comes along about England temporarily transferring their support to Wales he defuses it politely and diplomatically.
(7) Moir, who has won a British Press Award, made a statement defending her column late on Friday, saying it was not her intention to offend, blaming a "heavily orchestrated internet campaign" for the furore and adding that it was "mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones".
(8) The final seconds of the movie are the most memorable, in which Smokey assures Big Worm he’s going to rehab, before hanging up the phone and lighting a joint with a mischievous grin to the camera.
(9) These fairies have sharp, mischievous features, quite different from the later fairies of Bethlem.
(10) Prime ministers are very useful to a treasurer,” Keating said mischievously, and Hawke and I had a great relationship until he “produced a nasty little book”.
(11) The first point to note is that Sally's spirit guides were in a particularly mischievous mood during the reading, because they persuaded Sally to make statements such as: Sally: Is there the name Robyn?
(12) What is not so well known is his mischievous streak.
(13) The moderator of the conference demanded that Aydin switch to Turkish; a fellow Kurd came mischievously onto the platform to translate.
(14) Richard E Grant and Anna Chancellor join the cast, with Grant playing a guest of the Granthams and Chancellor the mischievous Lady Anstruther.
(15) At the time, a friend of Rennard told the BBC the "shocking and mischievous" leak was "in total defiance of fair process" and had caused great distress to the peer.
(16) Outside of the octagon, Bisping possesses the demeanour of an oversized Ricky Hatton - all mischievous grins, wisecracks and gentle ribbing of his sparring partners.
(17) Updated at 10.58am BST 10.55am BST Is the chancellor being too dramatic by declaring this morning that NO Help To Buy mortgages can be granted at more than 4.5 times the borrowers' income, asks a mischievous Robert Peston.
(18) He bubbles with mischievous excitement, recounting the range of thugs, creeps and gorgeous males who fell under his spell ("It was like a conduit had opened").
(19) Raphael wrote: “We believe our audience is sophisticated enough to accept a broad range of viewpoints, and we are loth to censor or avoid significant works of literature because they might be controversial.” BBC Radio 4 Publicity said online: “In Hilary Mantel’s mischievous story, a knock at the door announces an unexpected visitor who has plans to alter the course of history as people know it.
(20) For his part, Mr Taleb may have felt mischievously reported.
Tinker
Definition:
(n.) A mender of brass kettles, pans, and other metal ware.
(n.) One skilled in a variety of small mechanical work.
(n.) A small mortar on the end of a staff.
(n.) A young mackerel about two years old.
(n.) The chub mackerel.
(n.) The silversides.
(n.) A skate.
(n.) The razor-billed auk.
(v. t.) To mend or solder, as metal wares; hence, more generally, to mend.
(v. i.) To busy one's self in mending old kettles, pans, etc.; to play the tinker; to be occupied with small mechanical works.
Example Sentences:
(1) For further education, this would be my priority: a substantial increase in funding and an end to tinkering with the form of qualifications and bland repetition of the “parity of esteem” trope.
(2) "We should be working out how it should be ended, rather than tinkering around the edges."
(3) The transport secretary, Philip Hammond, indicated that the government had no appetite for the kind of structural tinkering that broke up British Rail and rushed the system into private ownership in the 1990s.
(4) Tinker with the tax treatment of the elderly and prepare to be accused of imposing a "granny tax" .
(5) He also says that continual tinkering with pension rules by successive governments could deter people from investing in pensions.
(6) As the global financial crisis deepens, the rich nations will be forced to recognise that their problems cannot be solved by tinkering with a system that is constitutionally destined to fail.
(7) The pre-briefing we’re seeing, tinkering with schedules, now going on about pay, it’s very, very threatening to an institution that’s loved, [even one] that needs to reform.” Jeremy Hunt was the last culture minister to try to increase NAO oversight at the BBC, in 2010.
(8) Jean-Claude Juncker , the European commission president, told the Guardian in December that Cameron could tinker with British law on social security and migrant rights, but that enshrining discrimination in EU law was a no-go area.
(9) The tinkering with the tort system following the 1975 malpractice crisis will not ease the constantly increasing cost burden on the health care delivery system.
(10) At the very least, it would seem to be tinkering with the formula of the biggest spiritual brand in the world, analogous to Coca-Cola changing its famous recipe in 1985 .
(11) ET 10 min: Am I the only person who found Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy interminably dull?
(12) Happily, there are suddenly more alternatives, indies, blended play and new tech enabled hybrids, toys that encourage tinkering, making and individuality.
(13) This suggests that Labour’s answer to Ukip cannot be purely tactical or about tinkering with policy.
(14) The existence of multiple neuronal representations of sensory information and multiple circuits for the control of behavioral responses should provide the necessary freedom for evolutionary tinkering and the invention of new designs.
(15) Even after the Daily Mail's Jack Tinker (obituary, October 29 1996) contrived for Shulman's career as a theatre critic to be brought to an end in 1991, he continued to write a column for the Evening Standard on art affairs - until he was 83.
(16) The Tasmanian Liberal premier, Will Hodgman, opposed “tinkering” with the system.
(17) His personal favourite is probably his own 1926 vintage Bentley, and he admits to being in seventh heaven tinkering "to a fault" with any old engine he can get his hands on.
(18) I think a lot of the things they publish tinker on racism and Islamophobia … but at the same time I think they have a right to do what they do.
(19) But if these opportunities are squandered because tinkering at the edges seems safer than radical reform, we will have failed every future rape victim.
(20) The sounds he discovered on his guitar, refined during hours of solitary tinkering in his home studio, adorned records by Elvis Presley, Hank Williams and thousands of other artists, both country and pop.