retaliate

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“
The US spokesman would not say how the United States might retaliate, adding: "We're at the point of considering all our options regarding our relationship."

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Definitions (9)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. intransitive verb To return like for like, especially evil for evil.
  2. transitive verb To pay back (an injury) in kind.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (3)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (2)

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Examples (50)

  • Please do not retaliate, and let me have good news of you soon. —  Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2
  • Mahomet was powerless to retaliate, and was obliged to suffer from afar the murder of his fellow-believers. —  Mahomet
  • If we retaliate, there will not be a dog, a deer, an ape, a bird or fish or lizard to carry the evolutionary torch. —  COPYRIGHT 1940, 1947, 1948
  • North Korea is quick to retaliate -- in 1998 Pyongyang sought the means to enrich uranium and test a long-range Taepodong missile; in 2003 it reignited its plutonium program; in 2006 it test-launched a Taepodong and conducted a nuclear test; and last August it suspended disablement of its Yongbyon facilities and threatened to resume plutonium production. —  Web Edition | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
  • I told him that if he tried to retaliate, the situation would only get worse, and both of them would end up with a lot of problems and losses. —  Daily Blog Tips
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

retaliate:   retaliated ·  retaliating
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Late Latin retāliāre, retāliāt- : Latin re-, re- + Latin tāliō, punishment in kind; see telə- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from Latin retaliatus, past participle of retaliare, requite, retaliate (cf. talio, retaliation in kind; lex talionis, law of retaliation), from re-, back, again, + talis, such: see talion. Cf. retail.
 

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/rəˈtælɪeɪt/
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