Definition of "deviltry"
deviltry
noun
countable and uncountable, plural deviltries
Quotations
The poor girl had a right to her chance, and he should not really alter anything by taking it away from her; for was she not the artist to the tips of her tresses (the ambassadress never in the world), and would she not take it out in something else if one were to make her deviate? So certain was that irrepressible deviltry to insist ever on its own.
1890, Henry James, The Tragic Muse
They stand back to make room for every rascal and demagogue who chooses to cloak his selfish deviltry under the veil of race pride.
1897, W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Conservation of Races”, in Nahum Dimitri Chandler, editor, The Problem of the Color Line at the Turn of the Twentieth Century: The Essential Early Essays, New York: Fordham University Press, published 2015, page 57