Library / English Dictionary

AVENGE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Take revenge for a perceived wrong

Example:

He wants to avenge the murder of his brother

Synonyms:

avenge; retaliate; revenge

Classified under:

Verbs of fighting, athletic activities

Hypernyms (to "avenge" is one way to...):

penalise; penalize; punish (impose a penalty on; inflict punishment on)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "avenge"):

get back; get even (take revenge or even out a score)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

avenger (someone who takes vengeance)

Credits

 Context examples: 

I doubted not—never doubted—that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls—occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed—and rise before me in this chamber.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

But they were too late to avenge, as they had been too late to save.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The one great outrage of her life, demanding to be constantly avenged, was the passage of a donkey over that immaculate spot.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Holmes, however, is, I fancy, of a different way of thinking, and holds to this day that, if one could find the Grecian girl, one might learn how the wrongs of herself and her brother came to be avenged.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Hearts confined by cobwebs would burst at last, and then Love was avenged.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

When they got out the other day, which was some years before their full term, they set themselves, as you perceive, to hunt down the traitor and to avenge the death of their comrade upon him.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“Without more directly referring to any latent ability that may possibly exist on my part, of wielding the thunderbolt, or directing the devouring and avenging flame in any quarter, I may be permitted to observe, in passing, that my brightest visions are for ever dispelled—that my peace is shattered and my power of enjoyment destroyed—that my heart is no longer in the right place—and that I no more walk erect before my fellow man. The canker is in the flower. The cup is bitter to the brim. The worm is at his work, and will soon dispose of his victim. The sooner the better. But I will not digress. “Placed in a mental position of peculiar painfulness, beyond the assuaging reach even of Mrs. Micawber's influence, though exercised in the tripartite character of woman, wife, and mother, it is my intention to fly from myself for a short period, and devote a respite of eight-and-forty hours to revisiting some metropolitan scenes of past enjoyment. Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D. V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after tomorrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

However, wretch as he was, he was still living under the shield of British law, and I have no doubt, Inspector, that you will see that, though that shield may fail to guard, the sword of justice is still there to avenge.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)