Fierce anger bent on revenge or stern indignation.
Fierce anger bent on revenge or stern indignation; also the punishment that follows from it — divine chastisement (“the wrath of God”).
What marks it off is aim: wrath carries the intention to punish or settle a score, implying someone powerful enough to follow through — where rage and fury name a collapse of control, wrath names anger pointed at retribution. It need not boil over: it can be cold, measured, and long-held. The most heightened register in the family — archaic, biblical, literary — so casual use (“the wrath of fans”) is knowingly grand or half-joking.
Old English wræððu “vehement anger” (especially of a deity), from wrāð “angry,” literally “tormented, twisted” (the source of wroth), from PIE *wer- “to turn, bend” — the same root family as writhe.
Attested from before the 12th century — the oldest-rooted word of the set — with the “divine, righteous anger” application central from Old English on (“wrath of God,” “day of wrath”). Modern usage is essentially a deliberate retention of the elevated/archaic register. No recent-generation semantic shift is sourced.