violence

plural violences

1. countableuncountableExtreme force.

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

   3 more examples

   Some others get a rotten wheele, all worne and cast aside, Which covered round about with strawe, and tow, they closely hide: And caryed to some mountaines top, being all with fire light, They hurle it down with violence, when darke appeares the night

   1570, Thomas Naogeorgus, translated by Barnabe Googe, The Popish Kingdome

   Thus Water also, or any other Liquor, included in a convenient vessel, by being warmed, manifestly expands it self with a very great violence:[…]

   1665, Robert Hooke, Micrographia

   A "passenger/goods" cock is provided in each cab, by which, when placed in the "goods" position, the normal proportional brake application is slowed down. This is for use when hauling an unbraked or partially braked train, and prevents the unbraked stock from running into the locomotive or braked portion of the train with violence.

   1958 September 28, “Swindon's First Main-Line Diesel Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 603

2. countableuncountablePhysical action which causes destruction, harm, pain, or suffering.

   We try to avoid violence in resolving conflicts.

   2 more examples

   There is nothing unique or magical about the Middle East; it shares xenophobias and violences with all the rest of the world!

   2003, Diana Abu-Jaber, Arabian Jazz, page 329

   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.

   2013 July 19, Mark Tran, “Denied an education by war”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 1

3. countableuncountableWidespread fighting.

   Violence between the government and the rebels continues.

   1 more example

   But by the early 2000s, we were seeing fewer games like DOOM that dealt in the fantasia of ultraviolence and more games that tried to replicate the everyday violence of military encounters.

   2021 October 29, Trevor Strunk, “How To Get Away With Making An Ultraviolent Video Game”, in Defector

4. countablefigurativelyuncountableA perceived injustice, especially in the context of social justice.

   The translation does violence to the original novel.

   1 more example

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

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

present singular third person violences · participle present violencing · participle past violenced · past violenced

1. nonstandardTo subject to violence.

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

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

   2 more examples

   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 ...

   1996, Professor Cathy Nutbrown, Respectful Educators - Capable Learners: Children's Rights and Early Education, SAGE, →ISBN, page 36

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

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