Venal vs Enormity - What's the difference?
venal | enormity |
(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:
(uncountable) Extreme wickedness, nefariousness.
(countable) An act of extreme evil or wickedness.
(uncountable) Hugeness, enormousness, immenseness.
* {{quote-news
, year=2012
, date=May 13
, author=Alistair Magowan
, title=Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd
, work=BBC Sport
* 2007 , Edwin Mullins, The Popes of Avignon , Blue Bridge 2008, p. 103:
As an adjective venal
is venous; pertaining to veins.As a noun enormity is
extreme wickedness, nefariousness.venal
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.
Synonyms
* (for sale) purchasable * (willing to take bribes) crookedAntonyms
* (willing to take bribes) straight, honest, uncorruptAnagrams
* *enormity
English
Noun
(enormities)- Not until the war ended and journalists were able to enter Cambodia did the world really become aware of the enormity of Pol Pot's oppression.
citation, page= , passage=Rooney and his team-mates started ponderously, as if sensing the enormity of the occasion, but once Scholes began to link with Ryan Giggs in the middle of the park, the visitors increased the tempo with Sunderland struggling to keep up.}}
- But the enormity of Clement's vision of papal grandeur only became clear once the public rooms were completed during the years that immediately followed.