To take vengeance on account of; inflict punishment because of; exact retribution for; obtain or seek to obtain satisfaction for, especially with the idea of gratifying a sense of injury or vindictiveness: as, to revenge an insult.To satisfy by taking vengeance; secure atonement or expiation to, as for an injury; avenge the real or fancied wrongs of; especially, to gratify the vindictive spirit of: as, to revenge one's self for rude treatment.Synonyms Avenge, Revenge. See avenge.To take vengeance.n. The act of revenging; the execution of vengeance; retaliation for wrongs real or fancied; hence, the gratification of vindictive feeling.n. That which is done by way of vengeance; a revengeful or vindictive act; a retaliatory measure; a means of revenging one's self.n. The desire to be revenged; the emotion which is aroused by an injury or affront, and which leads to retaliation; vindictiveness of mind.n. Synonyms Revenge, Vengeance, Retribution, Retaliation, and Reprisal agree in expressing the visiting of evil upon others in return for their misdeeds. Revenge is the carrying out of a bitter desire to injure an enemy for a wrong done to one's self or to those who seem a part of one's self, and is a purely personal feeling. It generally has reference to one's equals or superiors, and the malignant feeling is all the more bitter when it cannot be gratified. Vengeance has an earlier and a later use. In its earlier use it may arise from no personal feeling, but may be visited upon a person for another's wrong as well as for his own. In the Scripture it means retribution with indignation. as in Rom. xii. 19: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,” where it is a reservation for Jehovah of the offices of distributive and retributive justice. In its later use it involves the idea of wrathful retribution, whether just, unjust, or excessive; it is often a furious revenge: hence there is a general tendency to turn to other words to express just retribution, especially as an act of God. Retribution bears more in mind the amount of the wrong done, viewing it as a sort of loan whose equivalent is in some way paid back. Any evil result befalling the perpetrator of a bad deed in consequence of that deed is said to be a retribution, whether occurring by human intention or not; personal agency is not prominent in the idea of retribution. Retaliation combines the notion of equivalent return, which is found in retribution, with a distinctly personal agency and intention; sometimes, unlike the preceding words, it has a light sense for good humored teasing or banter. Reprisal is an act of retaliation in war, its essential point being the capture of something in return or as indemnification for pecuniary damage from the other side. The word has also a looser figurative meaning, amounting essentially to retaliation of any sort. See avenge, requital, and the definition of retorsion.
