vengeance

• vengeaunce (obsolete)

From Anglo-Norman vengeaunce, from Old French vengeance, venjance, from vengier (“to avenge”). Analysable as venge +‎ -ance.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɛnˌd͡ʒəns/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnd͡ʒəns

vengeance (countable and uncountable, plural vengeances)

1. Revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.
   • 1906, Lord Dunsany [i.e., Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany], Time and the Gods‎, London: William Heineman, →OCLC, page 28:

     All the gods have mocked at prayer. This sin must now be punished by the vengeance of men.

   • 2000, Gladiator (film):

     My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North; General of the Felix Legions; loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius; father to a murdered son; husband to a murdered wife; and I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.

   • 2022 April 5, Sean Hannity, Sean Penn, 22:33 from the start, in Sean Penn joins Sean Hannity to discuss Russian invasion of Ukraine (Hannity)‎, Fox News, archived from the original on 11 April 2022:

     Penn: I don't want to invest in the conversation, not that I don't have it privately, about my feelings about what direct action should happen to a leader who does that, but if there is a God, there will be vengeance beyond all possible comprehension.
     Hannity: "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord", quoted in a very famous book.

2. Desire for revenge.
   • 1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC:

     Thereupon full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms […] a scheme of retribution, […]

   • 2008, Jean Harvey Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography, →ISBN:

     If her husband was all forgiveness, asking the bands to play “Dixie,” she was full of vengeance […]

   • 2011, James Calloway, Black America, Not in This America, →ISBN:

     Are they full of vengeance[?], because they say that people with vengeance in their hearts must dig two graves, one for their enemy and the other for themselves.

• reprisal
• retaliation
• retribution
• revenge
• wreak
• See also Thesaurus:revenge

• reconciliation

• venge
• venger
• vengeful

From venger +‎ -ance.

• IPA^(key): /vɑ̃.ʒɑ̃s/
• Rhymes: -ɑ̃s
• Homophone: vengeances
• Hyphenation: ven‧geance

vengeance f (plural vengeances)

1. revenge, vengeance

• la vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid

• “vengeance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

vengeance oblique singular, f (oblique plural vengeances, nominative singular vengeance, nominative plural vengeances)

1. Alternative form of venjance