mischief

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Mischief

A specific injury or damage caused by another person's action or inaction. In Civil Law, a person who suffered physical injury due to the Negligence of another person could allege mischief in a lawsuit in tort. For example, if a baseball is hit through a person's window by accident, and the resident within is injured, mischief can be claimed. It is distinct from malicious mischief, which is a criminal act usually involving reckless or intentional behavior such as Vandalism.

mischief

noun annoyance, criminality, cruelty, damage, damnum, danger, detriment, devilment, deviltry, disservice, evil, evil conduct, fault, foul play, frolicsomeness, harm, harmmul action, hurt, ill consequence, impishness, incommodum, injurious conduct, injuriousness, injury, injustice, maleficium, malicious action, malignity, maltreatment, meanness, misbehavior, misconduct, misdoing, misusage, molestation, nastiness, naughtiness, nuisance, outrage, prankishness, puckishness, rascality, roguery, ruin, transgression, trouble, vice, villainy, waggery, waggishness, wickedness, wrong, wrongdoing
Associated concepts: malicious mischief
See also: disservice, harm, misdoing
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Take this herb, which is one of great virtue, and keep it about you when you go to Circe's house, it will be a talisman to you against every kind of mischief.
She will then be frightened, and will desire you to go to bed with her; on this you must not point blank refuse her, for you want her to set your companions free, and to take good care also of yourself, but you must make her swear solemnly by all the blessed gods that she will plot no further mischief against you, or else when she has got you naked she will unman you and make you fit for nothing.
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And she, wrapped in mist, follows to the city and haunts of the people, weeping, and bringing mischief to men, even to such as have driven her forth in that they did not deal straightly with her.
265-266) He does mischief to himself who does mischief to another, and evil planned harms the plotter most.
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About three quarters of a year after this separation, a new frolic took these rogues, which, together with the former villainy they had committed, brought mischief enough upon them, and had very near been the ruin of the whole colony.
But they did nothing, and proposed nothing, but had either mischief in the design, or mischief in the event.
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Our affairs began to wear a new aspect, and the enemy, not daring to venture on open war, practised secret mischief at times.
Their connections were dissolved, their armies scattered, and a future invasion put entirely out of their power; yet they continued to practise mischief secretly upon the inhabitants, in the exposed parts of the country.
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he said to himself; "I thought we should have some mischief soon.
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These must be, not chivalry, but poetry," said the curate; and opening one he saw it was the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all the others to be of the same sort, "these," he said, "do not deserve to be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can hurt no one.
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And yet, angry as they were, they sometimes broke into a loud roar of laughter, as if mischief and destruction were their sport.
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If he isn't up to mischief, what does he need all these things for - private telegraph line, private telephone, private wireless?
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