Violence

How to spell violence

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce violence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does violence mean?

1. nounBehaviour that uses physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.
2. nounGreat force or intensity of a natural event, emotion, or action.

Violence in a sentence

• The documentary examined how poverty can fuel street violence.

• The storm struck the coast with surprising violence.

• The new policy aims to reduce violence in schools.

• She slammed the door with a violence that startled the whole office.

Where does violence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin violentia, meaning 'vehemence' or 'impetuous force', which was built on the adjective violentus, 'forceful' or 'vehement'. Behind both of these lies the Latin noun vis, meaning simply 'force' or 'strength'. English took the word from Old French in the 1300s, where it had already settled into the sense of physical force used to harm. The same vis root also feeds the words 'violate' and 'violent', so the cluster of forceful, harmful meanings has stayed remarkably consistent over the centuries. The spelling preserves the Latin -entia ending as the English -ence, which is the part adults most often second-guess, since the unstressed final syllable sounds the same as the -ance heard in many other words.

How the word is built

• viol- (from Latin violentia, force, vehemence, ultimately from vis 'force')
• -ence (noun-forming suffix)