Crossword clues for venal
venal
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Venal \Ve"nal\ (v[=e]"nal), a. [L. vena a vein.] Of or pertaining to veins; venous; as, venal blood. [R.]
Venal \Ve"nal\, a. [L. venalis, from venus sale; akin to Gr.
'w^nos price, Skr. vasna: cf. F. v['e]nal.]
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; as,
venal services. `` Paid court to venal beauties.''
--Macaulay.
The venal cry and prepared vote of a passive senate.
--Burke.
Syn: Mercenary; hireling; vendible.
Usage: Venal, Mercenary. One is mercenary who is either actually a hireling (as, mercenary soldiers, a mercenary judge, etc.), or is governed by a sordid love of gain; hence, we speak of mercenary motives, a mercenary marriage, etc. Venal goes further, and supposes either an actual purchase, or a readiness to be purchased, which places a person or thing wholly in the power of the purchaser; as, a venal press. Brissot played ingeniously on the latter word in his celebrated saying, `` My pen is venal that it may not be mercenary,'' meaning that he wrote books, and sold them to the publishers, in order to avoid the necessity of being the hireling of any political party.
Thus needy wits a vile revenue made,
And verse became a mercenary trade.
--Dryden.
This verse be thine, my friend, nor thou refuse
This, from no venal or ungrateful muse.
--Pope.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1650s, "capable of being obtained for a price; that can be corrupted;" 1660s, "offered for sale," from French vénal, Old French venel "for sale" (of prostitutes, etc.; 12c.), from Latin venalis "for sale, to be sold; capable of being bribed," from venum (nominative *venus) "for sale," from PIE root *wes- (1) "to buy, sell" (cognates: Sanskrit vasnah "purchase money," vasnam "reward," vasnayati "he bargains, haggles;" Greek onos "price paid, purchase," oneisthai "to buy"). Typically with a bad sense of "ready to sell one's services or influence for money and from sordid motives; to be bought basely or meanly."
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 a. venous; pertaining to veins Etymology 2
a. 1 (context archaic English) for sale; available for purchase. 2 Of a position, privilege etc.: available for purchase rather than assigned on merit. 3 Capable of being bought (of a person); willing to take bribes. 4 (context of behaviour etc. English) corrupt, mercenary.
WordNet
adj. capable of being corrupted; "corruptible judges"; "dishonest politicians"; "a purchasable senator"; "a venal police officer" [syn: corruptible, bribable, dishonest, purchasable]
Wikipedia
Venal is a 1981 Indian Malayalam film, directed by Lenin Rajendran. The film stars Sukumari, Nedumudi Venu, Sukumaran and Jalaja in lead roles. The film had musical score by MB Sreenivasan.
Usage examples of "venal".
He vanquished the monster of Libya, the president Andronicus, who abused the authority of a venal office, invented new modes of rapine and torture, and aggravated the guilt of oppression by that of sacrilege.
Not the least curious part of this outcrop is the black thread of iron silicate which, broken in places, subtends it to the east: some specimens have geodes yielding brown powder, and venal cavities lined with botryoidal quartz of amethystine tinge.
But Tanth Ein and Faralin Ferd, venal and easygoing men, had no interest in the question in the abstract.
Mirabeau shamelessly pours out the catalogue of his shifting and venal loves, in confidences which Vauvenargues invariably receives with discretion, unupbraiding, but not volunteering any like confidence in his turn.
No real violence was done to us, and once or twice, when it was known that some tyrannical wildgrave or venal burgess had been delivered to the mercy of the guild, we received shouted suggestions as to his disposalmost of them obscene and many impossible.
When Maximian had reluctantly abdicated the empire, the venal orators of the times applauded his philosophic moderation.
Despite his age, being of greater years than Marvell, he maintains a manly gravity and thereto a quality I fear Marvell does not possess of utter dedication to his art where Marvell spreads himself thin between his venal politicking, his grand projects and his poetry.
But his accusers are those venal writers who adored the fortune of Severus, and trampled on the ashes of an unsuccessful rival.
Can we accept the fact that these people are unethical, venal morons and leave it at that?
We were well aware from the outset that the Wingate principals were unethical, venal idiots, yet we decided to proceed in spite of it.
The highest names in France - the Princesse de Tingry, the Duchesse de Vitry, the Duchesse de Lusignan, the Duchesse de Bouillon, the Comtesse de Soissons, the Duc de Luxembourg, the Marguis de Cessac - scores of the older aristocracy, were involved, whilst literally hundreds of venal apothecaries, druggists, pseudo-alchemists, astrologers, quacks, warlocks, magicians, charlatans, who revolved round the ominous and terrible figure of Catherine La Voisin, professional seeress, fortune-teller, herbalist, beauty-specialist, were caught in the meshes of law.
Notwithstanding these rigorous precautions, the emperor Constantine, after a reign of twenty-five years, still deplores the venal and oppressive administration of justice, and expresses the warmest indignation that the audience of the judge, his despatch of business, his seasonable delays, and his final sentence, were publicly sold, either by himself or by the officers of his court.
Arabs: they drew their swords with scrupulous reluctance, and sustained siege in the village of Capernaum, till they were rescued by the venal protection of the Fatimite emir.
Cousin Jorjhk, back on Long Island, was as corrupt, venal, and nepotistic as any other public official on Long Island: one glance at his record will tell you that.
So the legislative sessions in Helena were nepotistic, venal, and rife with monopolistic intent.