What is difference between 'vengeance' and 'retaliation'?

Question

Well, the title says it all, how is 'vengeance' differentiated from 'retaliation'?

According to the linked definitions, 'vengeance' is

the punishing of someone for harming you or your friends or family, or the wish for such punishment to happen:

while 'retaliation' is

the act of hurting someone or doing something harmful to someone because they have done or said something harmful to you:

So if I kill someone who killed my parents, it is vengeance and not retaliation? If I hit someone who hit me, is it retaliation or vengeance or both?

Answer 1

There is a good bit of potential overlap between the two words, and a number of cases they could potentially be used interchangeably.

I'd use vengeance for a person or group when I'm thinking of them getting a sense of completion or satisfaction from the outcome. The type of punishment isn't really part of the term, but without other context I would assume "as much or more than the initial (perceived) wrong", because that's what emotionally satisfying.

For retaliation, it can be similar vengeance, but I'd tend to use it in two specific types of scenarios. The first is an immediate reaction. For example if you see someone's hand moving at high speed towards your face and your reaction is to punch them, that's the first type of retaliation - you aren't feeling or thinking about vengeance (yet) but about demonstrating you can hit back. The second is somewhat related, but is much more planned much less emotional. It is usually not about "correcting" a perceived wrong or being emotionally satisfied, but about demonstrating that you (or your group/country) won't be pushed around without response. To a certain degree, the intentions and emotions are to some degree what drives vengeance vs. retaliation. However, retaliation would typically be more calibrated to hopefully not escalate a situation further, whereas with vengeance it would typically not be a consideration.

Answer 2

Yes, both words share the notion of hurting those who hurt you. The differences are in the broader connotations and related ideas. "Retaliation" focuses on the action, while "vengeance" focuses on the result.

"Vengeance" is part of a broad notion of "justice." It plays into codes of justice common to many ancient systems of law (Norse, Babylonian, Mosaic) of "an eye for an eye," that if someone wrongs you, the wrong can be "paid for" by an equal wrong done to the other person. The notion of vengeance implies that this action reduces or resolves or offsets the wrong that was done to you.

Meanwhile "retaliation" just means that this action is in response to a wrong done to you. You could slap me and I could instantly slap you back. It can be independent of a "justice" system; my slap-back could be reflexive; I don't have to have felt "wronged." "Retaliation" just explains the motivation of the action, and it doesn't have to be because I felt that the wrong to me left an injustice that had to be paid for; it just has to be "in response." A retaliation of course could be part of "vengeance," but it could be an incomplete part. If you spread rumors about me at school, causing my boyfriend to dump me, then I might pursue vengeance first by spreading rumors about you in retaliation, but I won't consider my vengeance complete until I've first set you up with a boyfriend and then manipulated him into dumping you.

Answer 3

The word retaliation tends to be used in contexts where the retaliating entity has as the motivation for the harm it inflicts a desire to discourage future acts against it by the same actor or by other actors.

Vengeance, on the other hand, tends to be used in contexts where the avengers have as their motivation either a passionate desire "to get even" or an honor code that would cause them to be shamed if they did not seek to even the score with a party that had wronged them.