WANTONNESS

A reckless or malicious and intentional disregard of the property, rights, or safety of others, implying, actively, a licentious or contemptuous willingness to injure and disregard of the consequences to others, and, passively, more than mere negligence, that is, a conscious and intentional disregard of duty. Reckless sport; willfully unrestrained ac-tion, running immoderately into excess. A licentious act by one man towards the person of another, without regard to his rights; as, for example, if a man should attempt to pull off another’s hat against his will in order to expose him to ridicule, the offense would be an assault, and If he touched him It would amount to a battery. Bouvier.