Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Behavior or treatment in which physical force is exerted for the purpose of causing damage or injury.
  • noun Intense force or great power, as in natural phenomena.
  • noun Extreme or powerful emotion or expression.
  • noun Distortion of meaning or intent.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being violent; force; vehemence; intensity.
  • noun Highly excited feeling or action; impetuosity; vehemence; eagerness.
  • noun Injury done to anything which is entitled to respect, reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement; violation. See the phrases below.
  • noun Unjust or unwarranted exertion of power; unjust force; force employed against rights, laws, liberty, or the like; outrage; injury; hurt; attack; assault.
  • noun Ravishment; rape
  • noun In law: Any wrongful act of one person, whereby either he or his instrument of wrong-doing is brought into contact with the limbs or body of another person.
  • noun The overcoming or preventing of resistance by exciting fear through display of force.
  • noun The unlawful use of physical force.
  • noun Synonyms 1 and 2. Passion, fury, flerceness, wildness, rage, boisterousness.
  • To do violence to; assault; injure.
  • To bring by violence; compel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or state of being violent; highly excited action, whether physical or moral; vehemence; impetuosity; force.
  • noun Injury done to that which is entitled to respect, reverence, or observance; profanation; infringement; unjust force; outrage; assault.
  • noun Ravishment; rape; constupration.
  • noun to attack; to murder.
  • noun to outrage; to injure.
  • transitive verb obsolete To assault; to injure; also, to bring by violence; to compel.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Extreme force.
  • noun Action intended to cause destruction, pain, or suffering.
  • noun Widespread fighting.
  • noun figuratively Injustice, wrong.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an act of aggression (as one against a person who resists)
  • noun a turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc.
  • noun the property of being wild or turbulent

Etymologies

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Examples

  • More media coverage around domestic violence in order to “break the silence and stop the violence”.

    REPORT: BEIJING + 5 2000

  • This shows to what extent Sartre is unaware of his basic disagreement with Marx on the question of violence, especially when he states that "irrepressible violence… is man recreating himself," that it is "mad fury" through which "the wretched of the earth" can "become men."

    A Special Supplement: Reflections on Violence Arendt, Hannah 1969

  • However, having regard to the trial judge's reasons as a whole, and considering both the content of some of S's speeches already mentioned, and the broad latitude allowed by the defence of fair comment, the defamatory imputation that while S would not engage in violence herself she “would condone violence” by others, is an opinion that could honestly have been expressed on the proved facts by a person prejudiced, exaggerated or obstinate in his views.

    Daimnation!: Fair Comment 2008

  • The surge in violence is raising fresh concerns about the planned pullout of American troops next year.

    Baghdad Blasts Kill Scores, Over 200 Hundred Wounded AP 2010

  • Perhaps people would be less likely to engage in violence if our press stopped pushing the idea that violence is so common-place in society. ed Says:

    Matthew Yglesias » Under Construction 2007

  • The first words that surface in connection with the word violence are aggression, fighting, hostility, brutal, cruel, and vicious—definitely not words that smooth the exchange of ideas.

    Egonomics David Marcum 2007

  • Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these?

    Memorabilia 2007

  • Without the conformity of human law to the law of the Gospel, the term violence inevitably contracted, while the terms property and happiness expanded in proportion to what unrestrained human weakness and popular consensus demanded.

    Liberty: The God that Failed 2007

  • Attacks upon property and upon white womanhood are pre-eminently what many users of the term violence have in mind.

    A Special Supplement: On Violence Cameron, J.M. 1970

  • Are we, or are we not, to apply the term violence to these?

    The Memorabilia 431 BC-350? BC Xenophon 1874

Comments

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  • Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -Salvor Hardin in Isaac Asimov's Foundation.

    February 20, 2008

  • "He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster." - Friedrich Nietzsche

    July 30, 2008