venal
willing to be bribed or act corruptly for money
Word origin: From Latin venalis, for sale.
Venal in a sentence
Here are example sentences showing venal in a sentence.
The venal official accepted payments to overlook safety violations.
Investigators uncovered a venal inspector who waved through violations in exchange for cash.
Using “venal” well
Venal means willing to be bribed or to act corruptly for money, describing people or conduct. Do not confuse it with venial, which means a minor, forgivable fault.
More GRE words starting with V
to waver indecisively between options or opinions
the inability to decide between different courses of action; wavering
total absence of thought, ideas, or substance
empty of meaning, substance, or intelligence
a person who roams from place to place with no fixed home
an unpredictable or capricious change or notion
a person who wanders without a settled home or work
excessively boastful and vain about one's achievements
Questions about “venal”
See these words the way the GRE tests them.
Definitions in isolation do not stick. Sit a free, full-length GRE mock and meet this vocabulary inside real text completion and sentence equivalence questions, with your score and a worked solution for every answer.