English

Preposition

in spite of

1. (idiomatic) Despite, irrespective of, notwithstanding.
   • 1898, Henry James, The Turn of the ****, Courier Dover Publications (1991), ISBN 0486266842, page 72,

     No evening I had passed at Bly had the portentous quality of this one; in spite of which—and in spite also of the deeper depths of consternation that had opened beneath my feet—there was literally, in the ebbing actual, an extraordinarily sweet sadness.

Usage notes

• In spite of is at once three words and one preposition; as may be seen in the 1898 quotation above, it is not separated during preposition-stranding (hence “in spite of which […] ”, never *“of which […] in spite”), but it may sometimes be separated by an adverb (as in “in spite also of”).
• The phrase is often misused where regardless of would be appropriate.

Translations

Derived terms

• in spite of oneself

Anagrams

• pontifies