malice vs spitefulness

malice and spitefulness both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
malice	Yes	No	No	No
spitefulness	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, spitefulness is a hyponym of malice; that is, spitefulness is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than malice:

Other hyponyms of malice include bitchiness, cattiness, nastiness, spite, cruelness, cruelty, harshness, beastliness, meanness.

As nouns, malice and spitefulness are synonyms defined as:

Other synonyms of malice include maliciousness, spite, venom.

malice (noun)	spitefulness (noun)
the quality of threatening evil	malevolence by virtue of being malicious or spiteful or nasty
feeling a need to see others suffer	feeling a need to see others suffer