Etymology

revenge

re·venge
R1E1V4E1N1G2E1

Today it means: Any form of personal, retaliatory action against an individual, institution, or group for some alleged or perceived harm or injustice. Full definition →

Middle French revenge ← Old French revengier ← Old Occitan revènge
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

revenge · noun1

  1. Latin · derived fromvindicō
  2. Old Occitan · derived fromrevènge“revenge, comeback”
  3. Old French · derived fromrevengier
  4. Middle French · borrowed fromrevenge
  5. English todayrevenge

From Middle French revenge, a derivation from revenger, from Old French revengier (possibly influenced by Old Occitan revènge (“revenge, comeback”), from Old Occitan revenir (“to come back”)), a variant of Middle French revancher (whence deverbal French revanche), from Old French revenchier. The variants Old French vengier (whence French venger) and Old French venchier are both descended from Latin vindicō, with stress-conditioned different parallel development in the inflectional forms. Doublet of revanche. Compare avenge and vengeance.

revenge · verb2

  1. Old French · derived fromrevengier
  2. Middle English · inherited fromrevengen
  3. English todayrevenge

From Middle English revengen, from Old French revengier, revenger.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.