invidious

invidious [ɪnˈvɪdiəs] a.

1.) Of a charge, complaint, report, etc.: tending or fitted to excite odium, unpopularity, or ill feeling against some one. Now rare.
2.) Of an action, duty, topic, etc.: entailing odium or ill will upon the person performing, discharging, discussing, etc.; giving offence to others.
3.) Of a comparison or distinction: offensively discriminating.
4.) Of a thing: fitted to excite ill feeling or envy against the possessor.
5.) That looks with an evil eye; envious, grudging, jealous. Now rare.
6.) Viewed with ill will or dislike; odious to a person. Obs. rare (O.E.D. 2nd Ed.).

Etymology: From Latin invidiosus, envious, hostile, from invidia, envy.

"I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the bonfire" ("Earth's Holocaust" in Mosses from an Old Manse, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1846).

(De goudweger en zijn vrouw, Quentin Massys, 1514)