violence

From Anglo-Norman and Old French violence, from Latin violentia, from adjective violentus, see violent.

• IPA^(key): /ˈvaɪələns/, /ˈvaɪləns/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛns

violence (countable and uncountable, plural violences)

1. Extreme force.

   The violence of the storm, fortunately, was more awesome than destructive.

2. Action which causes destruction, pain, or suffering.
   • 2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1:

     One particularly damaging, but often ignored, effect of conflict on education is the proliferation of attacks on schools […] as children, teachers or school buildings become the targets of attacks. Parents fear sending their children to school. Girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence.

   We try to avoid violence in resolving conflicts.

3. Widespread fighting.

   Violence between the government and the rebels continues.

4. (figuratively) Injustice, wrong.

   The translation does violence to the original novel.

   • 2017, Kevin J. O'Brien, The Violence of Climate Change

     Racism, classism, sexism, ethnocentrism, and heterosexism are also wicked problems of structural violence […]

5. (obsolete) ravishment; rape; violation

• (action intended to cause destruction, pain or suffering): peace, nonviolence

• (extreme force): force

• violent
• violate
• violation

• domestic violence
• reverse domestic violence

violence (third-person singular simple present violences, present participle violencing, simple past and past participle violenced)

1. (nonstandard) To subject to violence.
   • 1996, Professor Cathy Nutbrown, Respectful Educators - Capable Learners: Children's Rights and Early Education, SAGE →ISBN, page 36:

     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  ...

   • 2011, Timothy D. Forsyth, The Alien, AuthorHouse →ISBN, page 24:

     And the triad is made complete by she who is violenced by him.

   • 2012, Megan Sweeney, The Story Within Us: Women Prisoners Reflect on Reading, University of Illinois Press →ISBN, page 46:

     He physically violenced my mother, physically violenced me and my brothers, and was sexually abusive to me until I was in second grade.

• "violence" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 329.

Borrowed from Latin violentia, from adjective violentus, see violent.

• IPA^(key): /vjɔ.lɑ̃s/

• Audio (France, Paris)

  (file)

• Homophone: violences

violence f (plural violences)

1. (uncountable) violence
2. (countable) act of violence

• ardeur
• brutalité
• force
• fougue
• fureur
• sévices
• virulence

• douceur

• violemment
• violent
• violenter

• “violence” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Borrowed from Latin violentia.

violence f (oblique plural violences, nominative singular violence, nominative plural violences)

1. violence
2. act of violence