Forms: 4–5 veniour, -iere, vengere, 5– venger (5 wen-), 6 vengear (van-). [a. AF. or OF. *vengeour (vangeor, vencheur, F. vengeur) and vengiere, agent-n. f. venger VENGE v.] An avenger. Now poet. or rhet.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter, viii. 3. Þat þou distroy the enmy & þe vengere.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 297. He is Goddis mynystre, vengere into wraþþe to hym þat doþ evyl. Ibid. (1382), Hosea v. 13. And Effraym wente to Assur, and sente to the kyng veniour.
1447. Bokenham, Seyntys (Roxb.), 54. And this I wyl thou know for sekyrnesse That god is wenger of wyckydnesse.
1483. Cath. Angl., 400/1. A venger, vindex, vindicator.
1526. Tindale, Prol. Ep. Romans, A iij. Thou woldest thatt their were no … God, the auctor and vangear of the lawe.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. iii. 20. His bleeding hart is in the vengers hand.
1601. Yarington, Two Lament. Trag., IV. viii., in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. I, he is well, in such a vengers handes, As will not winck at your iniquitie.
1865. Reader, 16 Sept., 399/2. Other champion of our cause shall come,… venger of his sire.
1881. H. Phillips, trans. Chamisso’s Faust, 10. The Venger’s Vengeance smites the guilty head.
