violence

English

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈvaɪ.(ə.)ləns/
    • Audio (US):(file)
    • Audio (UK):(file)
  • (obsolete or poetic) IPA(key): /ˈvaɪ.(ə)ˌlɛns/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)
  • Hyphenation: vio‧lence, vi‧o‧lence
  • Rhymes: -aɪələns, -aɪləns

Noun

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
    • 1958 September, “Swindon's First Main-Line Diesel Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 603:
      A "passenger/goods" cock is provided in each cab, by which, when placed in the "goods" position, the normal proportional brake application is slowed down. This is for use when hauling an unbraked or partially braked train, and prevents the unbraked stock from running into the locomotive or braked portion of the train with violence.
  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.
    • 2021 October 29, Trevor Strunk, “How To Get Away With Making An Ultraviolent Video Game”, in Defector‎[1]:
      But by the early 2000s, we were seeing fewer games like DOOM that dealt in the fantasia of ultraviolence and more games that tried to replicate the everyday violence of military encounters.
  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

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

Hypernyms

Derived terms

Translations

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

Verb

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

French

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

Noun

violence f (plural violences)

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

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Further reading

Middle English

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Old French violence, from Latin violentia.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

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

  • English: violence

References

Old French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin violentia.

Noun

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

  1. violence
  2. act of violence

Descendants

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