1.
[syn: vengeance, retribution, payback]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Vengeance \Venge"ance\, n. [F. vengeance, fr. venger to avenge,
L. vindicare to lay claim to, defend, avenge, fr. vindex a
claimant, defender, avenger, the first part of which is of
uncertain origin, and the last part akin to dicere to say.
See Diction, and cf. Avenge, Revenge, Vindicate.]
1. Punishment inflicted in return for an injury or an
offense; retribution; -- often, in a bad sense, passionate
or unrestrained revenge.
[1913 Webster]
To me belongeth vengeance and recompense. --Deut.
xxxii. 35.
[1913 Webster]
To execute fierce vengeance on his foes. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
2. Harm; mischief. [Obs.] --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
What a vengeance, or What the vengeance, what! --
emphatically. [Obs.] "But what a vengeance makes thee
fly!" --Hudibras. "What the vengeance! Could he not speak
'em fair?" --Shak.
With a vengeance,
(a) with great violence; as, to strike with a vengeance.
[Colloq.]
(b) with even greater intensity; as, to return one's
insult with a vengeance.
[1913 Webster + PJC]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
vengeance
n 1: the act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation
for something harmful that they have done) especially in
the next life; "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord"--Romans 12:19; "For vengeance I would do nothing.
This nation is too great to look for mere revenge"--James
Garfield; "he swore vengeance on the man who betrayed him";
"the swiftness of divine retribution" [syn: vengeance,
retribution, payback]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
30 Moby Thesaurus words for "vengeance":
avengement, avenging, blood feud, counterblow, energetically,
enthusiastically, ferociously, feud, fiercely, forcefully,
furiously, getting even, repayment, reprisal, requital,
retaliation, retribution, return, revanche, revanchism, revenge,
revengefulness, sweet revenge, vehemently, vendetta, vengefulness,
violently, wholeheartedly, wildly, with a vengeance