violence
noun
Simple meaning
Physical action which causes destruction, harm, pain.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
vyuhluhnsSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈvaɪələns
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
Physical action which causes destruction, harm, pain, or suffering.
Widespread fighting.
Extreme force.
figuratively
Injustice, wrong.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Physical action which causes destruction, harm, pain, or suffering.
Used this way, violence is a reasonably familiar word carrying real weight of difficulty or hurt. It carries more force than its gentler alternatives. It turns up most in personal or emotional discussion and literature or storytelling contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Strongly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Strong
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Strongly negative / painful
- Usage feel
- Everyday but emotionally strong
Where it naturally appears
- Personal/emotional discussion
- Literature/storytelling
Usage note
Violence is emotionally heavy: it suggests deep or lasting feeling, not a passing mood, so it can overstate a small reaction.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use violence
- “He may accomplish by craft in the long run what he cannot do by force and violence in the short one.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A crime less serious than a felony.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Violence or physical abuse directed toward your spouse or domestic partner or other members of a household.
A public act of violence by an unruly mob.
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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.