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Vendetta   Listen
noun
Vendetta  n.  
1.
A blood feud; private revenge for the murder of a kinsman.
2.
Any feud or contention that is bitter and prolonged; however, the deep enmity may be held by only one party to the dispute; as, the former Mayor nurtured a lifelong vendetta against the candidate who defeated him.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Vendetta" Quotes from Famous Books



... not limited to the lower classes, but reached to the highest. The chronicles and novels of the period are full of such instances, especially of vengeance taken for the violation of women. The classic land for these feuds was Romagna, where the 'vendetta' was interwoven with intrigues and party divisions of every conceivable sort. The popular legends present an awful picture of the savagery into which this brave and energetic people had relapsed. We are told, for instance, of a nobleman at Ravenna who had got all ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... many ways socially and politically leading western civilisation. Russia was a pacific power perforce, divided within itself, torn between revolutionaries and reactionaries who were equally incapable of social reconstruction, and so sinking towards a tragic disorder of chronic political vendetta. Wedged in among these portentous larger bulks, swayed and threatened by them, the smaller states of the world maintained a precarious independence, each keeping itself armed as dangerously as ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells

... wrong committed was a natural impulse, and the recognition of this fact in custom established it not merely as a right but as a duty. War, the modern form of trial by battle, the vendetta, and the duel are examples that have survived down to modern times of this natural and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... strange expression which came over their victim's face while the lash was being applied. Each of these men spoke of the look as having been directed at himself. Had they been members of one of the dark-skinned races, to whom the vendetta is peculiarly an institution, they would have understood ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt

... of the new classicalism or the scepticism of men like Guido Cavalcanti, the petty rivalries of great houses alternating with large schemes of public policy, the tenderest poetry with brutal outrage and lust, the art of Giotto with the slow, patient bloodthirst of the vendetta. ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... If the astrologer's opinion is favorable, however, the bargain is concluded on the spot. The astrologer offers a cocoa-nut and a handful of sugar to the father, after which nothing can be altered; otherwise a Hindu vendetta will be handed down from generation to generation. After the obligatory goat-sacrifice, the couple are irrevocably betrothed, and the astrologer fixes the ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... most usual cause of war, and not, as has been reported, glory and the capture of slaves. There is never wanting on the part of those who originate the war a reasonable motive. The vendetta system is not only recognized, but vengeance is considered incumbent on the relatives of one who has been killed, and, as a reminder, a piece of green rattan is sometimes strung up in the house. The rattan suggests that until it rots the wrong will not be forgotten. If the father is ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... case, I imagine that both Mr. Deane and this Tomkinson may be mistaken. I am told that a horse trained locally has a splendid chance—let me see—yes, here it is: the Honorable Charles Fenton's Vendetta." ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy

... the fourth toe he severs, he pays solidi three. LXXIIII If the fifth toe he severs, he pays solidi two. LXXV Upon all these damages or injuries, above described, which among men exempt occurred, therefore, a heavier punishment, have we placed than our ancestors, that the Faida (feud, vendetta), that is, the hatred, after the receiving the above described (ssta—suprascripta) punishment, may cease, and, moreover, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... northern neighbors. They are a capable, creative, conservative, reliable race. On the other hand, the hot temper of the South has been fed by an infusion of Greek and Saracen blood. In Sicily this strain shows at its worst. There the vendetta flourishes; and the Camorra and its sinister analogue, the Black Hand, but too realistically remind us that thousands of these swarthy criminals have found refuge in the dark alleys of our cities. ...
— Our Foreigners - A Chronicle of Americans in the Making • Samuel P. Orth

... set the matter at rest. Should it not be complied with, the probability is that the sons or brothers of the victim would embrace some opportunity to kill the murderer and give rise for a demand of payment from the family of the slain murderer, and in case of non-fulfilment a vendetta be established, as is the case now in the tribe that dwells on the coast of Baffin's Bay, near the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder

... eloquenza; buono grammatico, megliore rettorico, autorista buono...Oh, come spesso diceva, 'Dove sono questi buoni Romani? Dov'e loro somma giustizia? Poterommi trovare in tempo che questi fioriscano?' Era bell 'omo...Accadde che uno suo frate fu ucciso, e non ne fu fatta vendetta di sua morte: non lo poteo aiutare; pensa lungo mano vendicare 'l sangue di suo frate; pensa lunga mano dirizzare la cittate di Roma male guidata."—"Vita di Cola di Rienzi" Ed. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... look at it you and Cass got in bad this time. Here's the point. In this little vendetta of ours both sides were trying to keep inside the law and win out. When you elected Bolt sheriff that was one to you. When you took out that grazing permit and cut me off the reserve that was another time you scored heavy. A third time was when you brought 'steen thousand ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... Tough firmly, and then stopped, drew a long breath and continued: "Say, you and I have sort of formed up a sort of vendetta and all that sort of thing, ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson

... seen, and was supposed to be deaf to all the fair Manon's proofs of devotion. Mystery on mystery. However, this youth, under the diligent attentions of police spies, was soon seen and identified as an escaped convict, the famous hero of the Corsican vendetta, the handsome ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... swept crossroads on which supplies came up, and the Canadian sniper, in one shell-hole or another, lay for hours in sulky patience, and at last got his man... They had to pay for all this, at Maple Copse, in June of '15, as I shall tell. But it was a vendetta which did not end until the war ended, and the Canadians fought the Germans with a long, enduring, terrible, skilful patience which at last brought them to Mons on ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs

... and women are designed to cherish finer sentiments. As for Lucrezia, she will doubtless swear a vendetta, ...
— The Net • Rex Beach

... human conduct. Though at present religion and law both prohibit revengeful acts, the desire "to get even" flames high in almost every human breast under all kinds of injury or insult. This form of hate may express itself crudely in the vendetta of the Sicilian, the feud of the Tennessee mountaineer, or the assault and battery of an aggrieved husband; it is behind the present-day conflict in Ireland, and it threatened Europe for forty years after the Franco-Prussian War, —and no man knows how profoundly it will influence future world ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... de Marville, Madame The Vendetta Cesar Birotteau Jealousies of a Country Town Scenes ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac

... "Money is often more cruel than men; and a business vendetta is frequently mere murder without the incident of blood. I don't suppose the life of your Arizona town would show these trade wars. It would take Eastern—that is, older—conditions, to ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... was a drunken row on a New Year's Eve within the sound of Trinity chimes. "People versus Sterling Greene." Yes, he was a colored man—I recalled the evidence—drink and a "yellow gal." "People versus Mock Duck"-a Chinese feud between the On Leong Tong and the Hip Sing Tong—a vendetta, first one Chink shot and then another, turn and turn about, running back through Mott Street, New York, Boston, San Francisco, until the origin of the quarrel was lost in the dim Celestial mists across the sea. Out of the first four cases the following ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train

... man possessed by a devil who will not leave him; and I have always observed, that the devil most obstinate to be expelled is a secret. I knew you were a Corsican. I knew you were gloomy, and always brooding over some old history of the vendetta; and I overlooked that in Italy, because in Italy those things are thought nothing of. But in France they are considered in very bad taste; there are gendarmes who occupy themselves with such affairs, judges who condemn, and scaffolds which avenge." Bertuccio clasped his hands, and as, in all ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... and opened a bone-handled pocket-knife and scraped a dried piece of mud from his left boot. I thought at first he was going to swear a vendetta on the blade of it, or recite "The Gipsy's Curse." The few feuds I had ever seen or read about usually opened that way. This one seemed to be presented with a new treatment. Thus offered on the stage, it would have been hissed off, and one of ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... that one gets credit for much he does not deserve. There was your immortal General Lincoln, a wit so famous in your country that every good story is fathered upon him, I understand. So with your humble servant. Let a man accomplish his vendetta upon the body of an enemy, and behold! the world cries: ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine



Words linked to "Vendetta" :   blood feud, feud



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