The Veneti (sometimes also referred to as Venetici, Ancient Veneti or Paleoveneti to distinguish them from the modern-day inhabitants of the Veneto region, called Veneti in Italian) were an Indo-European people who inhabited northeastern Italy, in an area corresponding to the modern-day region of Veneto, from the middle of the 2nd millennium BC and developing their own original civilization along the 1st millennium BC.

The Veneti were initially attested in the area between Lake Garda and the Euganean Hills; later they expanded until they reached borders similar to those of the current Veneto region. According to the archaeological finds (which also agree with the written sources), the western borders of their territory ran along Lake Garda, the southern ones followed a line that starts from the Tartaro river, follows the Po and reaches Adria, along the extinct branch of the Po of Adria, while the eastern ones reached up to the Tagliamento river.

According to Julius Pokorný, the ethnonym Venetī (singular *Venetos) is derived from Proto Indo-European root *wen- 'to strive, to wish for, to love'. As shown by the comparative material, Germanic languages had two terms of different origin: Old High German Winida 'Wende' points to Pre-Germanic *Wenétos, while Lat.-Germ. Venedi (as attested in Tacitus) and Old English Winedas 'Wends' call for Pre-Germanic *Wenetós. The latter, according to Tacitus, who would have been familiar with Adriatic Veneti, connects the Vistula Veneti with the Slavs. Etymologically related words include Latin venus, -eris 'love, passion, grace'; Sanskrit vanas- 'lust, zest', vani- 'wish, desire'; Old Irish fine (< Proto-Celtic *venjā) 'kinship, kinfolk, alliance, tribe, family'; Old Norse vinr, Old Saxon, Old High German wini, Old Frisian, Old English wine 'friend'.

The ancient Veneti spoke Venetic, an extinct Indo-European language which is evidenced in approximately 300 short inscriptions dating from the 6th to 1st centuries BC. Venetic appears to share several similarities with Latin and the other Italic languages, but also has some affinities with other Indo-European languages, especially Germanic and Celtic.

Venetic should not be confused with Venetian, a Romance language presently spoken in the Veneto region.

The extent of the territory occupied by the ancient Veneti before their incorporation by the Romans is uncertain. It included cities of the modern Veneto such as Este, Padua, Vicenza, Asolo, Oderzo, Montebelluna, Vittorio Veneto, Cadore, as well as other areas around the Po Delta. Venetic territory was incorporated into Cisalpine Gaul, and under Augustus was organized as the tenth region (Regio X Venetia et Histria) of Roman Italy. Regio X stretched geographically from the Arsia River in the east in what is now Croatia to the Abdua in the current Italian region of Lombardy and from the Alps to the Adriatic Sea.

Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) at one point mentions the Veneti of the Adriatic (Histories V.9) and at another refers in passing to the "Eneti in Illyria" (Histories I.196) whose supposed marriage customs, he claims, mirrored those of the Babylonians. This led early scholars to seek to link the Veneti with the Illyrians. Their Illyrian origin is further strengthened by their close relationship with the inhabitants of the coastal regions of the Adriatic. Karl Pauli, a late 19th-century expert on the Venetic language, declared that the language was more closely related to that of the Illyrians than to any other language, even though knowledge of Venetic is limited to personal names, nouns, and verbs used in dedicatory formulae. There are even fewer remains of an Illyrian language which have been connected to the region and may indicate an Illyrian. However, this identification of the Adriatic Veneti as Illyrians has been discredited by many linguists. Hans Krahe and later Anton Mayer showed that Herodotus was not referring to the Adriatic Veneti, but to an Illyrian tribe that lived in the borderlands of northern historical Macedonia. Later linguistic and paleontological studies further solidified their findings.

Roman historian Titus Livius (59 BC–AD 17), himself a native of the Venetic town of Patavium, wrote that after the fall of Troy, the Trojan prince Antenor became the leader of the Paphlagonians after they all had been expelled from their homeland. Together, they migrated to the northern end of the Adriatic coast where they established a settlement, and conquered and merged with indigenous people known as the Euganei. The story connects the Veneti with the Paphlagonian Eneti, mentioned by Homer (750 BC).