Etymology
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revenge (v.)

late 14c., revengen, "avenge oneself," from Old French revengier, revenger, variants of revenchier "take revenge, avenge" (13c., Modern French revancher), from re-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see re-), + vengier "take revenge," from Latin vindicare "to lay claim to, avenge, punish" (see vindication). Transitive sense of "take vengeance on account of" is from early 15c. Related: Revenged; revenging; revengement.

To avenge is "to get revenge" or "to take vengeance"; it suggests the administration of just punishment for a criminal or immoral act. Revenge seems to stress the idea of retaliation a bit more strongly and implies real hatred as its motivation. ["The Columbia Guide to Standard American English," 1993]
also from late 14c.

revenge (n.)

"retaliation for wrongs real or fancied, act of doing harm or injury in return for wrong or injury suffered," 1540s, from French revenge, a back-formation from revengier (see revenge (v.)). Hence "vindictive feeling, desire to be revenged."

also from 1540s

Entries linking to revenge

vindication (n.)

late 15c., "act of avenging, revenge," from Old French vindicacion "vengeance, revenge" and directly from Latin vindicationem (nominative vindicatio) "act of claiming or avenging," noun of action from past participle stem of vindicare "lay claim to, assert; claim for freedom, set free; protect, defend; avenge" (related to vindicta "revenge"), probably from vim dicare "to show authority," from vim, accusative of vis "force" (see vim) + dicare "to proclaim" (from PIE root *deik- "to show," also "pronounce solemnly," and see diction). Meaning "justification by proof, defense against censure" is attested from 1640s.

avenge (v.)

"vindicate by inflicting pain or evil on the wrongdoer," late 14c., from Anglo-French avenger, Old French avengier, from a- "to" (see ad-) + vengier "take revenge" (Modern French venger), from Latin vindicare "to claim, avenge, punish" (see vindication). See revenge (v.) for distinction of use. Related: Avenged; avenging. As a noun to go with it, 16c. English tried avenge, avengeance, avengement, avenging.

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Trends of revenge

adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/. Ngrams are probably unreliable.

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updated on August 02, 2021

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Dictionary entries near revenge

revelator

revelatory

reveler

revelry

revenant

revenge

revengeful

revenue

reverb

reverberant

reverberate