vengeful

[ venj-fuhl ]

adjective

1. desiring or seeking vengeance; vindictive:

   a vengeful attitude.

   Synonyms: spiteful, revengeful

2. characterized by or showing a vindictive spirit:

   vengeful intentions.

3. serving to inflict vengeance:

   a vengeful killing.

vengeful

/ ˈvɛndʒfʊl /

adjective

1. desiring revenge; vindictive
2. characterized by or indicating a desire for revenge

   a vengeful glance

3. inflicting or taking revenge

   with vengeful blows

Derived Forms

• ˈvengefulness, noun
• ˈvengefully, adverb

Other Words From

• vengeful·ly adverb
• vengeful·ness noun
• unvengeful adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of vengeful¹

First recorded in 1580–90; shortened form of revengeful

Example Sentences

So far we’ve watched Balto and Wolfwalkers, the latter a 2020 film about a girl who turns into a wolf and must help save her fellow canines—and the wild lands they inhabit—from vengeful humans.

From Outside Online

Activist Charlie Kirk warned of a “vengeful mob that seeks to destroy our way of life, our neighborhoods, schools, churches and values.”

From Washington Post

The state will argue, Leitess said, that Ramos was a vengeful narcissist who believed he was smarter than everyone else.

From Washington Post

That depends on your flour, the ambient humidity and, I believe, whether the pie gods are feeling vengeful.

From Washington Post

Gone is her psychotic look and her murderous, vengeful hatred for everything around her.

From Washington Post

So, better an angry, vengeful, mean God, who punishes a nation because some in it are having sex, than no God at all.

From The Daily Beast

In certain storylines, illegal industrial pollution is just as much a villain as the vengeful monsters it creates.

From The Daily Beast

Those who claim to speak for a vengeful Allah take great delight in smashing idols wherever and whenever they can get to them.

From The Daily Beast

Indeed, once the fire-engine house was taken, everybody seemed impressed by John Brown, rather than infuriated or vengeful.

From The Daily Beast

This is part the judgmental aestheticism of my mother hovering in my consciousness like a vengeful Jewish Yoda.

From The Daily Beast

These continued to be represented by their attendants, who executed a deity's stern and vengeful decrees.

From Project Gutenberg

Similarly in Babylonia the fragments of this class of literature which survive deal mainly with wicked and vengeful demons.

From Project Gutenberg

Trymore and Pringle, goading their horses frantically, were doing their utmost to get away from their vengeful comrades.

From Project Gutenberg

He did smile, a vengeful smile, as he thought of the trouble the black brute had put him to, with the chagrin it had caused him.

From Project Gutenberg

The agency that caused all these to be supplied—crafty, cruel, vengeful—may readily be guessed at.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• antagonistic
• hostile
• vindictive

More About Vengeful

What does vengeful mean?

Vengeful is used to describe someone who is determined to get revenge—retaliation against or punishment of someone for some kind of harm that they caused or wrongdoing that they did (whether real or perceived).

Vengeful also means inclined to seek revenge. The adjective vindictive is a close synonym. A much less commonly used synonym is revengeful.

Vengeful can be used to describe people or their actions or attitude.

Revenge often involves an attempt to get even by inflicting similar harm to the person who initially harmed the person seeking revenge. Revenge has several other synonyms that each have different shades of meaning, including retribution, retaliation, and reprisal. But more than these words, revenge implies that such retaliation is personal and motivated by a deep anger and perhaps an obsessive desire to get even. This is often what it means when someone is described as vengeful.

Example: Being vengeful does more damage to you than to the person you are intent on destroying.

Where does vengeful come from?

The first records of the word vengeful come from the late 1500s. It originated as a shortened form of revengeful, whose base word, revenge, comes from the Old French revenger, from the Late Latin revindicāre, from the Latin verb vindicāre, meaning “to protect,” “to avenge,” or “to punish.” The words vengeance, avenge, vindicate, and vindictive are all based on the same root. The re- in revenge and synonyms like retribution, retaliation, and reprisal indicates that these things are done in response or reaction to another action.

People who are described as vengeful are often those who are inclined to seek revenge no matter how small the harm or slight is to begin with. The word often implies that such a person is petty and can’t stand to lose or be treated in a negative way without doing something to get even.

Did you know ... ?

What are some other forms related to vengeful?

• vengefulness (noun)
• vengefully (adverb)

What are some synonyms for vengeful?

• vindictive
• retaliatory
• revengeful

What are some words that share a root or word element with vengeful? 

 

• venge
• revenge
• vengeance
• avenge
• vindictive
• vindicate

What are some words that often get used in discussing vengeful?

• retaliate
• get even
• payback
• anger
• hatred
• spiteful
• petty

How is vengeful used in real life?

Vengeful can be used to describe people or their actions or attitude. It usually implies that they are unnecessarily spiteful.

"He wanted to destroy everything, and so his dealers made it their duty to bag his paintings quickly, undoubtedly to rescue them from his vengeful and masochistic dissatisfaction."

Yves Peyré Remembers Francis Baconhttps://t.co/AaPyaQr1EI pic.twitter.com/qJTGODqhrq

— The Quietus (@theQuietus) November 19, 2020

I could never wish bad upon an ex, I don’t understand how some people are so vengeful.. like karma will do its job relax baby

— Vianey♡ (@vnamuniz) May 25, 2020

It's cool how, when you don't like someone as a grown-up, you can be vengeful and petty by giving loud and annoying toys to their kids.

— Nadin (@_shewolf13) January 26, 2017

 

 

Try using vengeful!

Which of the following words is a synonym of vengeful?

A. revengeful
B. vindictive
C. retaliatory
D. all of the above