A Dictionary of Cont..

sordid and improper in the transaction (The
temple itself is exposed to sale, and the holy
rites, as well as the beasts of sacrifice, are made
venal). As applied to conduct, it means characterized
by venality (They managed to come to a
venal understanding with the police).
That is venial which may be forgiven or pardoned,
which is not seriously wrong (He committed
the usual venial indiscretions of college
boys), excusable (Those venial slips of the
tongue, which are excusable and seem trivial,
though often amusing in what they reveal, are
not without considerable significance). In the
Roman Catholic Church, a venial sin is a voluntary
transgression of God’s law which, without
destroying charity or union with God, retards
man in attaining final union with Him.
venal; mercenary; hireling. All of these words,
when applied to persons, mean willing to be
employed for pay and each carries a different
degree of derogation, a suggestion of a different
degree of dishonor involved in the willingness.
Venal is the strongest in its condemnation. A
venal man is willing to sell his honor, his individuality.
He has no principle above “getting
ahead” and acquiring wealth (Venal and licentious
scribblers, with just suficient talents to
clotlie the thoughts of a pander in the style of a
bellman . . .). Venal, when so applied, also has
a suggestion that the person referred to has sufficient
intelligence to be aware of the moral problem
involved and often has a high degree of
intelligence and ability. Mercenary stresses the
greed involved and the activity it incites, the fact
that the sole motive for action is the desire for
money (Mercenary troops, perfectly acquainted
with every part of their profession, irresistible in
the field, powerful to defend or destroy, but
defending without love and destroying without
hatred. These mercenary considerations, at a
time when the thoughts of the others were moved
by pity, came as a shock. What should have been
an art, he has made a mercenary trade). When
used as a noun, mercenary now refers exclusively
to soldiers who fight solely for pay, and it
is to the credit of human nature that the word in
this sense does not carry quite as much opprobrium
as it does when, as an adjective, it is
applied to non-military matters. There may be
something base about a man’s offering to sell
his life for money, but there is also something
pitiful, especially when the money was so little;
and there is something noble, mitigating the initial
baseness, in the fact that mercenary soldiers
so often lived up to their bargain and died for
their pay. It was the Swiss mercenaries, for example,
that died defending Louis XVI when the
mob stormed the Tuileries (August 10, 1792).
Hireling as a noun, however (even though
almost everybody today works for hire), is used
only in contempt or reprobation, possibly because
it has become fixed in scorn in the famous
Biblical passage (The hireling fleeth, because he
is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep). As
an adjective, hireling stresses servility (A hireling
host and rufian band/ Affright and desolate
the land / While peace and liberty lie bleeding).
It carries strong contempt but its effectiveness is
weakened by the fact that it is now a literary
word and if you are out to abuse someone it is
well to avoid literary words.
venerate. See reverence.
venery. There are two venery’s. One means the
gratification of sexual desire, the other the practice
or sport of hunting (A monk ther was, a fair
for the maistrye,/ An outridere that lovede vcnerye).
The word in both senses is now archaic.
A famous old English work. The Boke of Venerye
Ljust to prevent undergraduates from putting
library staffs to unnecessary trouble], is
concerned with hunting.
vengeful. See avenge.
venom and poison both describe substances that
injure the health or destroy life when absorbed
into the system, especially of a higher animal.
Poison is now the general word. Literally, it
means any substance which by reason of an inherent
deleterious property tends to destroy life
or impair health (Prussic acid is one of the most
powerful poisons known). Figuratively poison
means anything harmful, fatal, baneful, or highly
pernicious, as to character, happiness or wellbeing
(The poison of totalitarian ideology is in
almost everybody’s veins).
Venom is a more limited term, describing the
poisonous fluid which some animals, as certain
snakes, spiders, scorpions, bees, secrete (Toad,
that under cold stone/ Days and nights has
thirty-one/ Sweltered venom sleeping got.. . )
and introduce into the bodies of their victims by
biting or stinging (The venom of a rattlesnake
will make a man very sick but will not necessarily
kill him). Figuratively, venom means something
resembling or suggesting poison in its effect;
spite; malice (There was considerable venom in
his criticism). The word carries the suggestion
that the one who secretes or discharges the
venom is reptilian.
venture; adventure. Both words convey the idea
of a hazardous or risky undertaking or enterprise.
Venture is used chiefly to describe a business
enterprise or proceeding in which loss is
risked in the hope of profit; a commercial or
other speculation (Zf the venture succeeds, they
stand to make well over a million. Zf it fails, they
will be wiped out, to a man!).
Adventure means any exciting experience,
often one in which there is an element of danger
(In the night’s battle he had enough adventure
to last a lifetime). When commerce had its real
physical dangers, adventure could be used of a
business undertaking. The Merchant Adventurers
was an incorporated group of London merchants
(whose Governor, by the way, was Sebastian
Cabot). Perhaps business has become safer or
more prosaic or perhaps excitement and glamour
are now romantically conceived of as lying
wholly outside of any commercial activity.
In the phrase at a venture there is now no
suggestion of danger or risk; it simply means “at
random.”
The adjective of adventure is adventurous.
The adjective of venture is venturesome, with
venturous leas often preferred.