Revengier

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person who inflicts punishment or harm in return for a wrong or injury they have suffered
2. Someone who seeks retribution against an enemy or wrongdoer in order to pay back a harm done to them
3. One who carries out vengeance, exacting a justified or bitter payback for an earlier offense

Etymology: Before it meant someone who takes vengeance, the root of "revengier" meant simply to claim or assert a right. It descends from the Latin "vindicare," "to lay claim to," which also gave English "vindicate," a word that kept that older legal sense. The two words are close cousins that took different paths: "vindicate" was borrowed straight from Latin, while this term came through Old French, where "vengier" meant to avenge, and it gained the prefix "re-" to strengthen the sense of paying back a wrong. This form is the Middle English spelling of "revenger," one who avenges. The "-ier" ending preserves the Old French agent suffix, as in "bowyer" or "lawyer," that marks a person who performs an action. Medieval writers used the spelling freely, and it gradually gave way to the modern "revenger" as English spelling settled.