You can picture a line that everyone had agreed to leave alone — a rule, a border, a person's own space, the quiet around a grave — and someone walking straight through it. Two things are always in the picture: the line was supposed to hold, and it was crossed by force rather than by accident. That is why 'violate' sounds so much heavier than 'break': breaking a rule is about the rule, violating one is about the fact that something protected was pushed through.
From the word’s history
English 'violate' appears in the early 15th century from Latin violatus, past participle of violare, 'to treat with violence, dishonour, outrage' — perhaps (the source hedges) an irregular derivative of vis, 'strength, force, power'. The earliest English uses already cover breaking oaths and desecrating sacred things, so the force-against-something-protected picture is there from the start, and it is the same family that gives English 'violence'.
violate 在十五世紀初進入英文，來自拉丁文 violatus（violare 的分詞），意思是「以暴力對待、使蒙羞、施加凌辱」；來源指出它「可能」（原文用了保留語氣）是 vis「力量、強力」的不規則衍生形。最早的英文用法就已經包含毀約和褻瀆聖物，可見「用力量壓過某個受保護的東西」這個畫面一開始就在。同一個字族也生出了 violence，所以這兩個字聽起來像親戚，並不是錯覺。
Online Etymology Dictionary (etymonline.com), entry 'violate' — https://www.etymonline.com/word/violate
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原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
violateverb詞源 1/ˈvaɪəˌleɪt/
- 1
To break or disregard (a rule or convention).
- Drinking-and-driving violates the law.
- Accessing unauthorized files violates security protocol.
- 2
To rape.
- That Antonia whom you violated, was your Sister! That Elvira whom you murdered, gave you birth! Tremble, abandoned Hypocrite! Inhuman Parricide! Incestuous Ravisher!
- Bulgarian soldiers in the meantime entered Turkish houses, violated the women and girls and stole everything they could lay their hands on.
- 3
slangTo cite (a person) for a parole violation.
- If you don't have a job, you can't pay the money, then you get violated and have to go back to prison.
- Estela: Well, they'd take me to jail, I'd violate, and I go to prison. And maybe I get violated for six months, eight months . . . maybe 30 days, 60 days . . . You know, whatever the parole officer recommended for me, I got.
violateadj詞源 2/ˈvaɪəˌleɪt/
- 1
archaicSubject to violation.
- [I]t was declared and resolved to be an undouted ancient standing order, not to be violate, and so was entred and established upon the booke.
- And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary / Is violate, our laws broken: […]
- 2
archaicSynonym of violated.
- My Fathers blood, Agneſias languiſhing griefs, my violate marriage, and this late contempt, raiſed ſeveral paſſions, which like ſo many torrents, overthrew all obſtacles that withſtood the rapacity of their courſe, […]
- And this Promiſe had never been accompliſhed, unleſs Jeſus, as the great promiſed Meſſiah, had taken off the Doom of the violate Law, […]
- 3
archaicobsoleteMorally impure.
- The bruite of which her rare perfections ran, […] laſtly reſted in the princes eares, / Who […] / Inuades my caſtell when I was at reſt, / And bare my daughter thence with violate hands, / Vnto his pallace where ſhe doth remaine, […]
- Naples is glad because her king has fallen / By my hand first; / Take home the lesson to thee, faithless warden, / The foremost and the worst, / Who makest of this lovely land, God’s garden, / A nation violate, corrupt, accurst.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。