What is the difference between purchase and venal?
purchase | venal |
(obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)
* Beaumont and Fletcher
An individual item one has purchased.
The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.
That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.
(uncountable) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.
The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
(rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.
(legal, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.
To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.
* Spenser
* Shakespeare
* Shakespeare
To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.
To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.
* Shakespeare
To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
* Shakespeare
To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase' upon, or apply a ' purchase to.
To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
* Ld. Berners
To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.
(archaic) For sale; available for purchase.
Of a position, privilege etc.: available for purchase rather than assigned on merit.
* 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 140:
Capable of being bought (of a person); willing to take bribes.
Corrupt, mercenary.
* 1785 , The Times , 9 Feb 1785, page 1, column C:
As a noun purchase
is the act or process of seeking and obtaining something (eg property, etc).As a verb purchase
is to pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.As a adjective venal is
venous; pertaining to veins or venal can be (archaic) for sale; available for purchase.purchase
English
Noun
- I'll get meat to have thee, / Or lose my life in the purchase .
- They offer a free hamburger with the purchase of a drink.
- He was pleased with his latest purchase .
- It is hard to get purchase on a nail without a pry bar or hammer.
- (Blackstone)
Derived terms
* purchase order * repurchaseVerb
(purchas)- that loves the thing he cannot purchase
- Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.
- His faults hereditary / Rather than purchased .
- to purchase''' land'', ''to '''purchase a house
- to purchase favor with flattery
- One poor retiring minute / Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends.
- Not tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.
- to purchase a cannon
- Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.
- ''Many aristocratic refugees' portable treasures purchased their safe passage and comfortable exile during the revolution
Synonyms
* (buy) procureDerived terms
* purchable * purchasing agent * purchasing powervenal
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl)Etymology 2
From (etyl) , compare vendAdjective
(en adjective)- Thus, regimental commands in the army were – as with the judiciary or the financial bureaucracy – venal posts, which were purchased, bequeathed and sold among the nobility.
- Though there is a disposition in mankind, to declaim against the corruption and peculation of the present times, as being more venal than formerly; yet, if we look back to different periods, we shall find statesmen and politicians, as selfish and corrupt, (...) as those who have lately figured on the political stage.