vengeance
noun
Simple meaning
Revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vehnjuhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvɛndʒəns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.
The act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) especially in the next life; I will repay, saith the Lord"--Romans 12:19
Desire for revenge.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.
Used this way, vengeance is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.