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Well, my lady Smart, I'll give you revenge whenever you please. Swift, Polite Conversation, iii. =Syn. 1. Revenge , Vengeance, Retribution, Retaliation , and Reprisal agree in expre ing the visiting of evil upon others in return for their misdeeds. Revenge is the carrying out of a bitter desire to injure an enemy for a wrong done to one's self or to those who seem a part of one's self, and is a purely personal feeling. It generally has reference to one's equals or superiors, and the malig. nant feeling is all the more bitter when it cannot be gratified. Vengeance has an earlier and a later use. In its earlier use it may arise from no personal feeling, but may be visited upon a person for another's wrong as well as for his own. In the Scripture it means retribution with indig. nation, as in Rom. xii. 19: " Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord," where it is a reservation for Jehovah of the offices of distributive and retributive justice. In its later use it involves the idea of wrathful retribution, whether just, unjust, or exce ive; it is often a furious revenge: hence there is a general tendency to turn to other words to expre just retribution, especially as an act of God. Retribution bears more in mind the amount of the wrong done, viewing it as a sort of loan whose equivalent is in some way paid back. Any evil result be felling the perpetrator of a bad deed in consequence of that deed is said to be a retribution , whether occurring by human intention or not; personal agency is not prominent in the idea of retribution . Retaliation combines the notion of equivalent return, which is found in retribution , with a distinctly personal agency and intention; sometimes, unlike the preceding words, it has a light sense for good-humored teasing or banter. Reprisal is an act of retaliation in war, its e ential point being the capture of something in return or as indemnification for pecuniary damage from the other side. The word has also a looser figurative meaning, amounting e entially to retaliation of any sort. See avenge , requital , and the definition of retorsion. revenge able (rē-venʻja-bl), a . [ revenge + -able .] Capable of or suitable for being revenged. [Rare.] -ment.] Revenge; retaliation for an injury. [Rare.] Thinges of honour are so delicate that the same day that any confe eth to haue receiued an iniurie, from that day he bindeth himselfe to take revengement .