vaen.
/vʌɪ/ΘΚΠ
the mind > language > malediction > [noun]
cursea1050
malisonc1300
woea1425
evil thee1509
thunderbolt1559
vae1559
thunder-crack1577
ban1590
wish1597
anathema1603
imprecation1603
execration1605
thunder-clap1610
deprecationa1661
effulminationa1670
Maranatha1769
winze1786
cuss1829
sailor's blessing1876
blessing1878
sailor's farewell1937
the world > action or operation > harm or detriment > danger > threat or threatening > [noun] > threatening of punishment or vengeance
comminationa1464
vae1559
denunciation1563
1559 Abp. M. Parker et al. Let. to Queen Elizabeth I in Abp. M. Parker Corr. (1853) (modernized text) 79 We should..deserve the wrathful væ and vengeance of God.
1584 T. Lodge Alarum against Vsurers F iiij The Lord shal place you among the goates, and pronounce his Ve against you.
1602 W. Watson Decacordon Ten Quodlibeticall Questions 9 With how many væes and woes to you Scribes and Pharisees did he come vpon them?
a1636 T. Westcote View Devonshire 1630 (1845) 61 There was a væ or woe pronounced against them in these words,—‘Woe unto you Piltonians, that make cloth without wool’.
2. vae victis [Livy Hist. V. xlviii. 9] .
a. int. Woe to the vanquished.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > victory > shout of triumph [interjection]
io paean1592
victory1595
vae victis1612
victoria1639
1612 J. Selden in M. Drayton Poly-olbion viii. Illustr. 124 Whence, vpon a murmuring complaint among the Romanes, crying Væ victis, came that to be as prouerbe applied to the conquered.
1792 Burke Let. 3 Jan. in M. Arnold Lett., Speeches & Tracts on Irish Affairs (1881) 259 I cannot say væ victis, and then throw the sword into the scale.
1944 S. Bellow Dangling Man 112 Life is hard. Vae victis! The wretched must suffer.
b. n.phr. The humiliation of the vanquished by their conquerors; the phrase as a maxim or utterance.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > victory > [noun] > humiliation of vanquished by conquerors
vae victis1819
1819 W. Scott Ivanhoe I. ii. 39 The vae victis, or severities imposed upon the vanquished.
1856 M. Bernard in Oxf. Ess. II. ii. 90 The stonecutter has laboured to produce a vigorous representation of the vae victis—of triumphant pride and abject humiliation.
1904 G. K. Fortescue in Cambr. Mod. Hist. (1907) VIII. xvi. 512 Vae victis was one of the few unchanging revolutionary maxims.
1936 J. Nehru Autobiogr. l. 401 Vae victis seems to run like a thread through these utterances.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1916; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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