Revenge vs. Avenge

Avenge

Avenge is a verb that has its roots from the Latin vindicare. It means to cause harm to someone in return for an injury or wrong doing by them. Avengers is more in the context or sense of giving justice to someone. Examples –

·    I will avenge the miscreants soon.

·    We don’t want to avenge her loss and want to leave the matter here.

·    The avengers came, fought over the enemies and won the hearts of millions of people.

·    Our Prime Minister skilfully avenged the killings of our army men.

·    I vowed to myself, “I will sit in peace only after avenging the death of my teachers.”

As we see, in all the situations the person who wants to avenge is in a positive light and fighting for justice. In most cases, the person is doing it for others more than their own self.

Revenge

Taking revenge is also the same – causing harm to someone in return for something wrong they have done. Revenge is used both as a noun and verb, though the noun form is more common.

Examples –

·    We will take revenge of our last year’s loss by playing more aggressively this year.

·    She took her revenge on the flirtatious man by cheating on him.

·    The best revenge will be to ignore her and not respond to her calls.

·    Why do you want to revenge your own son?

The surprise revealed

When both the meanings are same, whats the difference? From the above examples, you might have guessed that revenge is more of a personal thing and can arise due to humiliation, ego, anger or resentment. For example, I don’t like someone and you keep making fun of me in front of that person – I am hurt. I try to take revenge by doing the same in front of someone you don’t like! Revenge is more like a retaliation for personal reasons than seeking justice for greater good.

So, always remember that avengers are the ones seeking justice for others

whereas

Revengers do so more out of their own personal vengeance.