Adjective

(en adjective)

Having a tendency to seek revenge when , vengeful.

* {{quote-book

, year=1920 , author=D. H. Lawrence , title=Women in Love , chapter=18 citation , passage=The vindictive mockery in her voice made his brain quiver.}}

* {{quote-book

, year=1933 , author=H. G. Wells , title=The Shape of Things to Come citation , passage=The victors will exact vindictive penalties and the losers of course will undertake to pay, but none of them realizes that money is going to do the most extraordinary things to them when they begin upon that.}}

(obsolete) punitive

Adjective

(en adjective)

Promoting or producing vindication.

* 1995 , Douglas Vickers, The Tyranny of the Market , ISBN 9780472106189, p. 77:

The principal vindicatory feature of the market system . . . rests in the fact that it permits and facilitates an intermarket and intersectoral flow of economic values.

Promoting or producing retribution or punishment.

* 1800 , The Annual Register (1797), J. Dodsley (London), vol. 39, p. 486:

To prevent the strong from oppressing the weak; to protect the acquisitions of industry . . . are duties which require that delegated authority should be exerted by public force and the vindicatory dispensations of pains and penalties.