Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or of the nature of retaliation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Tending to, or involving, retaliation; retaliative; as retaliatory measures.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Relating to or part of a retaliation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to or having the nature of retribution

Etymologies

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Examples

  • He says he has no reason to believe that these two men are interested in any sort of what he called retaliatory conduct.

    CNN Transcript Jun 12, 2007 2007

  • Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, warned that Russia could take what he called retaliatory steps if the United States were to go forward with its missile shield plan in Europe.

    CNN Transcript Jun 4, 2007 2007

  • This is what I call retaliatory terrorism, which was also seen in 1984 when a Sikh killed Indira Gandhi

    rediff.com 2008

  • Mr. Minaya lost his job after Ms. Familia filed a complaint to the city over her firing, an action she calls retaliatory in the complaint.

    Eric Javits Sued for Gender Bias 2010

  • The 2002 vote authorizing the invasion was not like the vote on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution on the use of force against North Vietnam, for which Congress had no time for hearings or debate and for which most of those supporting it (mistakenly) thought they were simply authorizing limited short-term retaliatory strikes in response to a specific series of alleged incidents.

    Stephen Zunes: The Democrats' War 2010

  • The 2002 vote authorizing the invasion was not like the vote on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin resolution on the use of force against North Vietnam, for which Congress had no time for hearings or debate and for which most of those supporting it (mistakenly) thought they were simply authorizing limited short-term retaliatory strikes in response to a specific series of alleged incidents.

    Stephen Zunes: The Democrats' War 2010

  • Their wholesale slaughter appears regularly on the evening news while heart-wrenching stories are spun about the suffering of Israeli fathers and mothers who lost loved ones in retaliatory attacks.

    Think Progress » Williams Confronts Kristol: ‘You Just Want War, War, War, And You Want Us In More War’ 2006

  • We are perfectly free to pass Bill C55 and protect Canadian magazines from the unfair competition of split-run magazine imports, but the price is a threatened trade war and three or four billion dollars in retaliatory levies on Canadian exports.

    Creating a Healthy Base for Canadian Feature Films 1999

  • Every proponent of Hindu nationalism encouraged and promoted the idea of retaliatory violence, be it Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo or V.

    Very little time and energy are expended in discussing the constellation of values Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

  • Every proponent of Hindu nationalism encouraged and promoted the idea of retaliatory violence, be it Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo or V.

    Archive 2008-11-01 Tusar N Mohapatra 2008

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