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1 Definition
Susceptible to bribery or corruption, describing someone willing to act dishonestly for personal profit or another form of gain.
2 In Use
The senator's venal habit of trading votes for campaign donations finally caught the attention of investigators.
3 Word Origin
venum Lat. · thing for sale → venalis Lat. · for sale, bribable → venal Middle English
Venal traces back to the Latin noun venum, meaning a thing offered for sale, which produced the adjective venalis, describing anything that could be purchased, including a person's loyalty or judgment. As the word moved into Middle English through legal and moral writing, it narrowed from simply for sale into a pointed accusation: someone whose principles have a price tag. That shift from commerce to corruption reflects how English often takes a neutral market term and sharpens it into a moral judgment.
💡Fun Fact
Venal is frequently confused with venial, a completely different word meaning pardonable or minor, as in a venial sin. The mix up has tripped up writers for centuries, since the two words differ by a single letter but describe nearly opposite ideas: one is forgivable, the other is for sale. Political journalism leans on venal constantly, describing officials, judges, or institutions whose decisions seem to follow money rather than merit. The word also has a close cousin in venality, the abstract noun for the corrupt tendency itself, which historians use when describing entire systems built on bribery rather than isolated bad actors.