with a vengeance
English edit
Pronunciation edit
Audio (AU) (file)
Prepositional phrase edit
- (idiomatic) With an intense motivation; in an extreme, intense, or violent manner.
- 1651, Samuel Clarke, A General Martyrologie, Underhill (London), ch. 27 "The Original Progress and Practice of the Spanish Inquisition," p. 209:
- With which intolerable pains if the party shriek or cry out, they roar out as loud to him to confess the truth, or else he shall come down with a vengeance.
- 1777, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal:
- Yes, egad, they are tenacious of reputation with a vengeance, for they don't choose anybody should have a character but themselves!
- 1779, “Miscellaneous Essays: From Dr. Beattie's Essay on Music and Poetry”, in Edmund Burke, editor, The Annual Register, or a View of the History, Politics, and Literature for the Year 1778, London: Dodsley:
- It is said, that in the first representation of the Furies of Eschylus, the horror of the spectacle was so great, that several women miscarried; which was indeed pathos with a vengeance.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 16, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
- They are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance.
- 1966 Sep, Charles A. Berst, “Propaganda and Art in Mrs Warren's Profession”, in ELH, volume 33, number 3, page 404:
- From the first, she is the New Woman with a vengeance, loving nothing better than a chair, whisky, cigars and a detective story.
- 1651, Samuel Clarke, A General Martyrologie, Underhill (London), ch. 27 "The Original Progress and Practice of the Spanish Inquisition," p. 209:
Synonyms edit
Translations edit
with intense motivation
|
References edit
- "with a vengeance" in the Dictionary.com Unabridged, v1.0.1, Lexico Publishing Group, 2006.