violence

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle English violence, from Old French violence, from Latin violentia, from adjective violentus, see violent. Displaced native Old English stræc.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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violence (countable and uncountable, plural violences)

  1. Extreme force.
    The violence of the storm, fortunately, was more awesome than destructive.
    • 1570, Thomas Naogeorgus, translated by Barnabe Googe, The Popish Kingdome:
      Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside,
      Which covered round about with strawe, and tow, they closely hide:
      And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light,
      They hurle it down with violence, when darke appeares the night
  2. Physical action which causes destruction, harm, pain, or suffering.
    We try to avoid violence in resolving conflicts.
    • 2003, Diana Abu-Jaber, Arabian Jazz, page 329:
      There is nothing unique or magical about the Middle East; it shares xenophobias and violences with all the rest of the world!
    • 2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:
      One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.
  3. Widespread fighting.
    Violence between the government and the rebels continues.
  4. (figuratively) Injustice, wrong.
    The translation does violence to the original novel.
    • 2017, Kevin J. O'Brien, The Violence of Climate Change:
      Racism, classism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and heterosexism are also wicked problems of structural violence […]

Antonyms

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  • (antonym(s) of “action intended to cause destruction, pain or suffering”): peace, nonviolence

Hypernyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

See also

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Verb

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violence (third-person singular simple present violences, present participle violencing, simple past and past participle violenced)

  1. (nonstandard) To subject to violence.
    • 1996, Professor Cathy Nutbrown, Respectful Educators - Capable Learners: Children's Rights and Early Education, SAGE, →ISBN, page 36:
      The key general point is that the idea of the agendered, asexual, aviolenced worker is a fiction; workers and organizational members do not exist in social abstraction; they are gendered, sexualed and violenced, partly by their position  ...
    • 2011, Timothy D. Forsyth, The Alien, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 24:
      And the triad is made complete by she who is violenced by him.
    • 2012, Megan Sweeney, The Story Within Us: Women Prisoners Reflect on Reading, University of Illinois Press, →ISBN, page 46:
      He physically violenced my mother, physically violenced me and my brothers, and was sexually abusive to me until I was in second grade.

References

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  • “violence”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
  • violence in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
  • "violence" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 329.
  • “violence”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French violence, from Latin violentia, from the adjective violentus, see violent.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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violence f (plural violences)

  1. (uncountable) violence
  2. (countable) act of violence

Synonyms

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Antonyms

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Derived terms

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Further reading

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old French violence, from Latin violentia.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˌviːɔlˈɛns(ə)/, /ˌviːəlˈɛns(ə)/, /viəlˈɛns(ə)/, /ˈviːəlɛns(ə)/

Noun

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violence (uncountable)

  1. Violence (harmful manual force) or an example of it.
  2. A harmful force of nature; great natural force.
  3. Divine or religious force or strength.
  4. The force or power of one's feelings or mental state.
  5. Powerful or forceful movement or mobility.
  6. Misrule or malgovernance; abuse of authority.
  7. (rare) Beneficial manual force.
  8. (rare) The strength of an ache.
  9. (rare) The whims of chance.

Descendants

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  • English: violence

References

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Old French

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Etymology

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Borrowed from Latin violentia.

Noun

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violence oblique singular, f (oblique plural violences, nominative singular violence, nominative plural violences)

  1. violence
  2. act of violence

Descendants

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