retort

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Anonymous: Wow, your retort was absolutely incoherent.

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Definitions (27)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (9)

  1. transitive verb To reply, especially to answer in a quick, caustic, or witty manner. See Synonyms at answer.
  2. transitive verb To present a counterargument to.
  3. transitive verb To return in kind; pay back.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (12)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • The materials for such retort are abundant and ready at hand. —  The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes
  • Of course my retort is: 'What business have they to spin the web?' —  The Daughters of Danaus
  • It is good for them The dairyman chuckled at the retort, and so did Fred Evelyn milked the pail full, turned it over to the dairyman and went to see the little pigs Evelyn," said Fred, "how would you like to take a ride over the ranch? —  Fred Fearnot's New Ranch and How He and Terry Managed It
  • When my mother went out, or had words with any of her neighbours, the retort was invariably, "Who sent the press-gang after her own husband?" —  Poor Jack
  • "My kinsman has ten generations of ancestry of the best blood of Scotland and the Isles underground To that, M. le Duc, there is an obvious and ancient retort--that therein he is like a potato plant; the best of him is buried Argyll stood before the Frenchman dubious and embarrassed; vexed at the tone of the encounter, and convinced, for reasons of his own, that in one particular at least the foreigner prevaricated, yet impressed by the manly front of the gentleman whose affair had brought a morning's tragedy so close upon the heels of an evening's mirth. —  Doom Castle
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

rejoinder ·  sarcasm ·  reply ·  repartee ·  rebuke ·  sneer ·  satire ·  remark ·  exclamation ·  epigram ·  raillery ·  taunt

Used in the same contextWord Family

retort:   retorts ·  retorted
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 (6)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Latin retorquēre, retort-, to bend back, retort : re-, re- + torquēre, to bend, twist; see terkw- in Indo-European roots.
  2. French retorte, from Medieval Latin retorta, from feminine of Latin retortus, past participle of retorquēre, to bend back; see retort1.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English retorten, retourten, retort, return, from Old French retort (from Latin retortus), retordre, French retordre, also rétorquer, twist back, = Spanish Portuguese retorcer = Italian ritorcere, from Latin retorquere, twist back, turn back, cast back (argumentum retorquere, retort an argument), from re-, back, + torquere, twist: see tort.
  2. from retort, v.
  3. from Old French retorte = Spanish Portuguese retorta, from Middle Latin *retorta, a retort, literally ‘a thing bent or twisted,’ being in form identical with Old French reorte, riorte = Italian ritorta, a band, tie, from Middle Latin retorta, a band, tie (of a vine); from Latin retorta, feminine of retortus, past participle of retorquere, twist back: see retort.
  4. from retort, n.
 

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/rəˈtɔrt/
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