RETORT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Retort

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/rˈitˌɔrt/ Listen

Retort

noun

A quick reply to a question or remark (especially a witty or critical one). Synonyms: comeback, counter, rejoinder, replication, return, riposte.

A vessel where substances are distilled or decomposed by heat.

verb

(past & past part. retorted; pres. part. retorting)

Answer back. Synonyms: come back, rejoin, repay, return, riposte.

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"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books

... you retort that David is naturally a depraved little boy, and so demands harsher measure, I have still my answer, to wit, what is the manner of severity meted out to him at home? And lest you should shuffle in your reply I shall mention a notable passage that ...

— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... same penetrating sense of humour as her brother Raymond and quite as much presence of mind in retort. Her gift of expression was amazing and her memory unrivalled. My daughter Elizabeth and she were the only girls except myself that I ever met who were real politicians, not interested merely in the personal side—whether Mr. B. or C. spoke well or was likely ...

— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... the same lightning flash which had illuminated the beribboned diploma in Miss Priscilla's mind had passed to Virginia also, the girl bit back a retort that was trembling on her lips. "I wonder if she can be getting to know things?" thought the older woman as she watched her, and she added half resentfully, "I've sometimes suspected that Gabriel Pendleton was almost too mild and easy going for a clergyman. If the Lord hadn't made him a saint, Heaven ...

— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow

... follows his movements and impulses slavishly and mechanically, and leans therefore to matter without ever ascending to Spirit. It is only when the power of the passions is dead altogether, and when they have been crushed and annihilated in the retort of an unflinching will; when not only all the lusts and longings of the flesh are dead, but also the recognition of the personal Self is killed out and the "astral" has been reduced in consequence to a cipher, that the Union with the "Higher Self" can take place. Then ...

— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... for a moment abashed and mute: She never before had been so near This gravelly ball, the mundane sphere; And she felt for a time at loss to know How to answer a thing so coarse and low. But to give reproof of a nobler sort Than the angry look, or the keen retort, At length she said, in a gentle tone, "Since it has happened that I am thrown, From the lighter element where I grew, Down to another, so hard and new, And beside a personage so august, Abased, I'll cover my head with dust, And quick ...

— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould

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