Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Open to bribery; mercenary: a venal police officer.
- adj. Capable of betraying honor, duty, or scruples for a price; corruptible.
- adj. Marked by corrupt dealings, especially bribery: a venal administration.
- adj. Obtainable for a price.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Ready to sell one's services or influence for money or other valuable consideration, and entirely from sordid motives; bought or to be bought basely or meanly for personal gain; mercenary; hireling: used of persons: as, a venal politician.
- Characterized by or springing from venality; also, made a matter of sordid bargaining and selling: used of things.
- Synonyms Venal, Mercenary, Hireling. These words represent a person or thing as ready to be dishonorably employed for pay. Each is strongest in one sense. Venal is strongest in expressing the idea of complete sale to a purchaser—character, honor, principle, and even individuality being surrendered for value received, the venal man doing whatever his purchaser directs, a venal press advocating whatever it is told to advocate. Mercenary is strongest in expressing rapacity, or greed for gain, and activity. Hireling is strongest in expressing servility and consequent contempt, hire having become an ignoble word for pay: as, a hireling soldiery; a hireling defamer. A venal man sells his political or other support; mercenary man sells his work, being chiefly anxious to get as much pay as possible; a hireling will do mean or base work as long as he is sure of his pay. Venal means a being ready to sell one's principles, whether he makes out to sell them or not; mercenary and hireling suggest more of actual employment.
- Of or pertaining to the veins; venous: as, venal blood or circulation.
Wiktionary
- adj. venous; pertaining to veins
- adj. for sale, available for a price
- adj. willing to take bribes
- adj. corrupt, mercenary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to veins; venous.
- adj. Capable of being bought or obtained for money or other valuable consideration; made matter of trade or barter; held for sale; salable; mercenary; purchasable; hireling.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. capable of being corrupted
Etymologies
- Latin vēnālis, from vēnum, sale; see wes-3 in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“It's hard to tell whom the sheik loathes more — Al Qaeda or Sunni politicians like Hashemi, who he describes as venal quislings.”
“They don't mind being described as venal, misguided, dogmatic, having halitosis, or being in league with Satan, but calling them gullible idiots is an insult too far.”
The Guardian: Dupes jibe riles opposition as PM throws red book at them
“I may blow chunks now just recalling the venal swine.”
“Humanity has committed many of what Mahatma Ghandi referred to as the venal sins -- to have wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity, knowledge without character, trade without morality, prayer without sacrifice and politics without principles.”
“I should be a liar if I said that many public-houses are highly moral and useful institutions; but the abuses are due to the rank faults of human nature, and not to the class of traders who are alternately described as venal sycophants or robbers.”
The Chequers Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in a Loafer's Diary
“A baker is not to be called venal if he sells his loaves, he is venal if he sells himself; Dryden only sold his loaves.”
“t mind being described as venal, misguided, or being in league with Satan, but calling them gullible idiots is an insult too far”
The Guardian: Dupes jibe riles opposition as PM throws red book at them
“One Democratic lawmaker has said that it has made Arizona a "laughingstock" but it's difficult to find an ounce of humor in this kind of venal legislation.”
The Huffington Post: Dave Zirin: No One Is Illegal: Boycott the Arizona Diamondbacks
“I love the sound of the word "venal" and I believe that is actually descriptive of a portion of our Vice President.”
“I agree that the mere disagreement about the scope of the AUMF or Article II was in no respect as "venal" or as "corrupt" as the entire Watergate affair.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘venal’.
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Words
phantasmagoria, eviscerate, avast, simulacrum, varicose, oblique, gestalt, ersatz, vernal, vivace, stellate, synecdoche and 314 more...
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Words I Used to Know
Words that make you go "I know that word...what the heck does it mean?!?
pulchritude, sanguine, trenchant, picaresque, gloaming, perfidious, confabulation, epiphany, importune, fulminate, efficacious, maladroit and 111 more...
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Words cool peeps use
These are words I have overheard, or over-read, or had whispered in my ear :-)
loquacious, zygote, epigone, kismet, philotheoparoptesism, venal, imbroglio, ephemeral, smarmy, machination, callipygian, lexicon and 8 more...
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[Open] Frequently confused and misused
Words that are often used to mean something other than what they mean to lexicographers.
apprehensible, immanent, eminent, seamen, venal, venial, brassiere, brassier, brasserie, brazier, brasier, elegy and 38 more...
milosrdenstvi "Because lips libertine and venal had murmured such words to him, he believed but little the candor of hers; he thought that exaggerated speeches hiding mediocre affections must be discounted; -- as if the fulness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sorrows; and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on which we hammer out tunes to make bears dance when we long to move the stars."
Flaubert, Madame Bovary, II.xii Nov 8, 2010
qroqqa There are so many different Latin roots resembling ven-: ones meaning "come", "sell", "hunt", "vein", "love (goddess)", "wind", "forgiveness", "poison", "stomach", and "vengeance" are enough to confuse anyone. I can never quite remember that a venal person is one who can be bought (cf. vend), while a venial sin is one that is forgivable (Latin venia "forgiveness" has no other common English reflexes). The adjective of vein is usually venous but can be both of venal, venial.
Hunting and love-play are both venery; it would be natural to imagine them metaphorically connected, but they're not. Vengeance has only a post-Classical ven-; the Classical gives us vindicate. Vent is cognate with wind; the root in invent, convenient is cognate with its meaning "come"; ventriloquist related to neither. Jun 1, 2009