vendetta
Americannoun
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vendettas
plural
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a private feud in which the members of the family of a murdered person seek to avenge the murder by killing the slayer or one of the slayer's relatives, especially such vengeance as once practiced in Corsica and parts of Italy.
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any prolonged and bitter feud, rivalry, contention, or the like.
a political vendetta.
noun
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a private feud, originally between Corsican or Sicilian families, in which the relatives of a murdered person seek vengeance by killing the murderer or some member of his family
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any prolonged feud, quarrel, etc
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of vendetta
First recorded in 1850–55; from Italian, from Latin vindicta “vengeance”; see vindictive
Explanation
A vendetta is blood feud, a quest for revenge. A vendetta might separate families for generations, with members of one family murdering those of the other, all to satisfy an ancient grudge. If a friend of yours breaks into your locker and fills it with crumpled up newspaper, you will not be able to hold your head up until you have carried out a vendetta. Perhaps you can tie his shoes together during French class without his noticing?
Vocabulary lists containing vendetta
100 SAT Words Beginning with "V"
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2015 Spelling Bee - Words from Round 2
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Challenge, List 5
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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.
See Examples For:
"No member of parliament with me will use this institution for a personal vendetta", Sonko said, speaking in Wolof.
From Barron's ● May 26, 2026
Later Roman writers dressed up the Punic Wars as an ancestral vendetta of the Barcids, the family to which Hannibal belonged.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 11, 2026
He re-teamed with Pollack in “Jeremiah Johnson,” in which he played a mountain man who becomes the object of a vendetta.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2025
Benn limited his media interviews, but came close to tears while talking about a "vendetta" against him when speaking to Piers Morgan.
From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2025
“Do we have to start a vendetta against Rita Skeeter as well?”
From "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire" by J. K. Rowling
Some believe this was a result of personal vendettas between the factions' leaders.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
It also exposed the AI boom’s underbelly: the grubby sidedeals, financial anxieties, short tempers and personal vendettas that have shaped modern technology every bit as much as the march toward machine consciousness.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026
Feldstein Soto has also been accused of mismanaging her office and using the city’s prosecutorial powers for personal vendettas in multiple lawsuits, allegations she has repeatedly denied.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2026
So this latest declaration may be yet another of his vendettas.
From Salon ● Dec. 23, 2024
In the office, as in every other aggregation of human beings, there were coteries, cliques, friendships and hatreds, jealousies, heart-burnings and vendettas.
From Love, the Fiddler by Lloyd Osbourne
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.
