avenge
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
to punish someone for a crime or a bad thing they did to you or someone you care about.
to exact satisfaction for a wrong by punishing the injuring party; the focus is usually on vindicating the victim.
Simple“In the movie, the hero seeks to avenge his father's death.”
In context“The protagonist spent years training in the mountains, determined to avenge the destruction of his village by the invading army.”
UsageTakes a direct object, which can be either the person harmed or the wrong itself.
PitfallHe avenged to his brother. He avenged his brother.The verb is transitive; you avenge a person or a wrong directly without using 'to'.
- 02 C1 Advanced
to get revenge on someone for something they did to you.
to revenge oneself; used reflexively to indicate the subject is seeking satisfaction for a personal slight.
Simple“He vowed to avenge himself on those who had lied about him.”
In context“The count was not a man to suffer an insult in silence; he waited decades to avenge himself upon his political rivals.”
UsageUsed with reflexive pronouns like 'himself' or 'themselves', often followed by 'on' or 'upon'.
Synonyms
“Middlesbrough avenged last season’s exit at the hands of Doncaster with a 3-1 win thanks to goals from Kyle Joseph, Will Lankshear and Jeremy Sarmiento.”
From Middle English avengen, borrowed from Old French avengier, from a- (“upon”) + vengier, from Latin vindicō, vindicāre.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.