Avenger

How to spell avenger

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce avenger

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does avenger mean?

1. nounA person who inflicts punishment or seeks justice in return for a wrong or injury.

Avenger in a sentence

• In the novel, the grieving brother becomes a relentless avenger pursuing the men who ruined his family.

• The film casts the detective as an avenger of the victims the system ignored.

Where does avenger come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the Latin verb vindicare, which meant 'to claim, to set free, or to punish', and which also gave English 'vindicate' and 'vengeance'. By way of Old French, vindicare became vengier, 'to take revenge', and the prefixed form avengier carried the sense of pursuing justice on someone's behalf. English borrowed the verb 'avenge' in the 1300s, and the agent noun 'avenger', meaning one who avenges a wrong, followed naturally with the familiar -er ending. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the soft 'g' is spelled with a plain g (not a j), and the unstressed vowels around it blur together, so writers often hesitate over the -enger ending. The same vindicare root quietly connects avenger to the courtroom word 'vindicate', a useful memory link.

How the word is built

• a- (to, from Latin ad-)
• venge (to take revenge, from Latin vindicare)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)