Venal - venial

Don't confuse the two similar adjectives venal and venial. Both are concerned with misconduct; but academic writers should be careful to observe the different kinds of misconduct which they label.

• Venal comes from a Latin word , vēnum 'for sale' (via the adjective vēnālis). Its normal current use is in connection with politics, where it is a condemnation of those individuals thought 'capable of being bribed'. Venal means 'mercenary', 'corruptible'. It can also be applied to the behaviour, rather than the person, and (more in historical than current contexts) to jobs, social positions and favours that could be bought (and sold).
  • (A homograph of venal means 'to do with the veins [or sometimes, in the past, the arteries]'. Modern usage prefers venous.
• Venial (with the additional '-i-') comes from the Latin venia, which meant 'forgiveness' or 'pardon'. Venial itself, then, means 'forgivable' or 'pardonable'. It is a term used properly in Theology, where the Roman Catholic church particularly categorizes sins into 'deadly', or 'mortal' (which condemn those who commit them to eternal suffering in Hell), and 'venial', which may be purged by appropriate penance, or a temporary residence in that foretaste of Hell called Purgatory. There are also figurative uses - unfortunately often indistinguishable from a misuse of venal.

Some offences can be both venal and venial.

AWE also has a page distinguishing between the words venous, Venus and vinous (unrelated to either venal or venial, except by phonetic coincidence), which may be helpful to you.