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violence definition

vio·lence (vī′ə ləns)

noun

  1. physical force used so as to injure, damage, or destroy; extreme roughness of action
  2. intense, often devastatingly or explosively powerful force or energy, as of a hurricane or volcano
    1. unjust or callous use of force or power, as in violating another's rights, sensibilities, etc.
    2. the harm done by this
  4. great force or strength of feeling, conduct, or expression; vehemence; fury
  5. a twisting or wrenching of a sense, phrase, etc., so as to distort the original or true sense or form to do violence to a text
  6. an instance of violence; violent act or deed

Etymology: ME < MFr < L violentia < violentus: see violent

Webster's New World College Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Alternate definitions:

law violence definition - legal

violence Synonyms

violence

n.

  1. Violent disturbance

    rampage, tumult, disorder, clash, onslaught, struggle, destruction; see also confusion 1, disturbance 2, uproar.

  2. Violent conduct

    fury, force, vehemence, injury, frenzy, brutality, savagery; see also intensity 1.


Webster's New World Roget's A-Z Thesaurus Copyright © 1999 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio.
Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

violence Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • incite: Earlier this week the Qatar-based TV and internet news channel was accused of inciting violence and hatred and taken off the air.

Preposition: against

  • shopworkers: One survey published in February revealed a 350 per cent rise in the number of threats of violence against shopworkers in Scotland last year.

Adjective modifier

  • domestic: Domestic violence affects 1 in 4 women at some point in their adult lives.

Noun used with modifier

  • mob: Coming up: child labor, sexual harassment, drugs, road safety, abortion and mob violence.
violence usage examples (more)

The word usage examples above have been gathered from various sources to reflect current and historical usage. They do not represent the opinions of YourDictionary.com.

violence quotes

  Keep violence in the mind Where it belongs.

-Aldiss, BrianWilson

Who can I tear to pieces, if not my friends?† If they were not my friends, I could not do such violence to them.

-Bacon, Francis

The Breed never dies. Sapper, Buchan, Dornford Yates, practitioners in that school of Snobbery withViolence that runs like a thread of good-class tweed through twentieth-century literature.

-Bennett, Alan

violence quotes (more)

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2005 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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MLA Style

"violence." Webster's New World College Dictionary. 2009

  • Your Dictionary. 5 July 2009
  • <www.yourdictionary.com/violence>

APA Style

violence. (2009). In Webster's New World College Dictionary

  • Retrieved July 5th, 2009, from www.yourdictionary.com/violence

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