Violence
noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Extreme force. countable, uncountable
"The violence of the storm, fortunately, was more awesome than destructive."
- 2 an act of aggression (as one against a person who resists) wordnet
- 3 Physical action which causes destruction, harm, pain, or suffering. countable, uncountable
"We try to avoid violence in resolving conflicts."
- 4 the property of being wild or turbulent wordnet
- 5 Widespread fighting. countable, uncountable
"Violence between the government and the rebels continues."
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- 6 a turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc. wordnet
- 7 Injustice, wrong. countable, figuratively, uncountable
"The translation does violence to the original novel."
- 1 To subject to violence. nonstandard
"The key general point is that the idea of the agendered, asexual, aviolenced worker is a fiction; workers and organizational members do not exist in social abstraction; they are gendered, sexualed and violenced, partly by their position ..."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Girls are more likely than boys to be malnourished, suffer poverty, face violence and be refused an education, according to a new report."
Etymology
From Middle English violence, from Old French violence, from Latin violentia, from adjective violentus, see violent. Displaced native Old English stræc.
Related phrases
More for "violence"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.