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Vengeance vs Mercy - What's the difference?

vengeance | mercy |

As a noun vengeance

is revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.

As a proper noun mercy is

, one of the less common puritan virtue names.

vengeance

English

Alternative forms

* vengeaunce

Noun

  • Revenge taken for an insult, injury, or other wrong.
  • * 2000 , (Gladiator) (film):
  • My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North; General of the Felix Legions; loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius; father to a murdered son; husband to a murdered wife; and I will have my vengeance , in this life or the next.
  • Desire for revenge.
  • * (Charles Dickens), (Little Dorrit) :
  • Thereupon full of anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance , she forms
  • * 2008 , Jean Harvey Baker, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography (ISBN 0393075680):
  • If her husband was all forgiveness, asking the bands to play “Dixie,” she was full of vengeance
  • * 2011 , James Calloway, Black America, Not in This America (ISBN 1462868576):
  • Are they full of vengeance'[?], because they say that people with ' vengeance in their hearts must dig two graves, one for their enemy and the other for themselves.

    Synonyms

    * reprisal * retaliation * retribution * revenge * wreak * See also

    Antonyms

    * reconciliation

    mercy

    English

    (wikipedia mercy)

    Noun

  • (uncountable) relenting; forbearance to cause or allow harm to another
  • (uncountable) forgiveness or compassion, especially toward those less fortunate.
  • (uncountable) A tendency toward forgiveness, pity, or compassion
  • (countable) Instances of forbearance or forgiveness.
  • A blessing, something to be thankful for.
  • (phrasal) Subjugation, power.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=1 , passage=The stories did not seem to me to touch life. […] They left me with the impression of a well-delivered stereopticon lecture, with characters about as life-like as the shadows on the screen, and whisking on and off, at the mercy of the operator.}}