VIOLATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Violate

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/vˈaɪəleɪt/ Listen

verb

Violate v. t. (past & past part. violates; pres. part. violating)

To treat in a violent manner; to abuse. "His wife Boadicea violated with stripes, his daughters with rape."

To do violence to, as to anything that should be held sacred or respected; to profane; to desecrate; to break forcibly; to trench upon; to infringe. "Violated vows 'Twixt the souls of friend and friend." "Oft have they violated The temple, oft the law, with foul affronts."

To disturb; to interrupt. "Employed, it seems, to violate sleep."

To commit rape on; to ravish; to outrage.

Synonyms: To injure; disturb; interrupt; infringe; transgress; profane; deflour; debauch; dishonor.

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Etymology of 'Violate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Violate" Quotes from Famous Books

... judicial power has occasionally been vested for a time in the representatives of the nation. It has been thought better to introduce a temporary confusion between the functions of the different authorities than to violate the necessary principle of the unity ...

— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville

... has the monopoly of "frightfulness." When not "frightful," Prussian troopers are not living down to the instructions of their War-lords to leave the conquered with nothing but eyes to weep with. Not content to crucify Canadians, murder priests, violate nuns, mishandle women, and bayonet children, the enemy torpedoes civilian-carrying liners, and bombs Red Cross hospitals. More, sinning against posterity as well as antiquity, Germans stand charged before man and God with reducing to ashes ...

— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers

... thinking of them," he answered. "I was thinking that if men like you and Lemuel Arnold and Nicholas Vance violate the law, lesser men will follow your example, and as you justify your act for security, they will justify theirs for revenge and plunder. And so the law will go to pieces and a lot of weak and innocent people who depend upon it for ...

— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. ...

— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson

... ameliorations to be imposed upon a people thoroughly contented with the laws and customs bequeathed by their ancestors? The attempt was nevertheless made, and ancient Bavarian official insolence leagued with French frivolity of the school of Montgelas to vex the Tyrolese and to violate their most sacred privileges. The numerous chapels erected for devotional purposes were thrown down amid marks of ridicule and scorn; the ignorance and superstition of the old church was at one blow to yield to modern enlightenment.[1] ...

— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

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