avenger
Americannoun
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a person who takes revenge for an offense.
They feel that by engaging in terrorism they become the avengers of a great wrong done to their people.
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a person who takes revenge on behalf of someone else.
In the film, Zorro sees himself as the avenger of the innocent.
Etymology
Origin of avenger
Explanation
A person who seeks revenge can be called an avenger. If you pay your brother back for eating all the cookies by finishing the last of his ice cream, you are an avenger of sorts. You may have heard of the comic book, TV, and movie superheroes called "The Avengers," but they're only one group of famous literary avengers. You could also call Shakespeare's Hamlet, who gets revenge for his father's death, an avenger. Most of the characters in the Greek classic "The Iliad" are avengers, too. The Old French root, avengier, means "to take revenge."
Vocabulary lists containing avenger
Words from "The Avengers"
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"Just Lather, That's All" and "The Woman Who Was Death"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the aftermath of the crime, newly minted fans of Mangione quickly fitted the man with revolutionary trappings, enshrining him as an avenger of working-class power.
From Slate • May 1, 2026
In “One of Us,” Elizabeth Day’s shrewd novel of political ambition and personal retribution, the unlikely avenger is a diffident British art historian.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026
Furiosa’s reticence is strategic, as well as a trait she shares with Mad Max himself, the model for her taciturn avenger.
From New York Times • May 17, 2024
Constructed out of Japan’s postwar atomic-bomb trauma, the King of the Monsters has proven a remarkably malleable character, playing environmental protector or atomic avenger with equal aplomb.
From Scientific American • Nov. 3, 2023
Try as he would, Cluny could not evade the grim avenger with the sword.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
