TIT FOR TAT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Tit for tat

"Tit for tat" Quotes from Famous Books

... nature the affair was still one of tit for tat. Mrs. Hughs became mute again. Her torn heart yearned to cancel the penalty that would fall on all of them, to deliver Hughs from the common enemy—the Law; but a queer feeling of pride and bewilderment, and a knowledge, that, to demand an eye for an eye was expected of all self-respecting ...

— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... think I ever did a fellow an intentional injury in my life. You would have been the last I should single out for it. I have had many ups and downs, Lionel, but somehow I have hitherto always managed to alight on my legs; and I believe it's because I let other folks get along—tit for tat, you see. A fellow who is for ever putting his hindering spoke in the wheel of others, is safe to get hindering spokes put into his. I am not a pattern model," comically added John Massingbird; "but I have never done wilful injury to others, and my worst enemy ...

— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... remark was another "Pshaw!" But Mrs. Peck went on: "When you've lived opposite to people like that for a long time you feel as if you had some rights in them—tit for tat! But she didn't take it up today; she didn't speak to me. She knows who I am as well as she knows ...

— The Patagonia • Henry James

... tit for tat; but he felt bitterly how even his past rose up against him. He had fought and sacrificed everything to improve the conditions in his branch; and the machines were the discouraging answer that the development gave to him ...

— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... back, jewels of silver, jewels of gold, and raiment. In fact they "spoiled the Egyptians." In recent times the modern Egyptians have wiped off that old score by spoiling a few Jewish moneylenders, and so returned tit for tat. ...

— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote

... typographic trade Ably in Bytown's first decade. And taught the art of Caxton well, And thoroughly to John George Bell, Who in our village made a racket, In the old columns of the Packet, Where every one got "tit for tat" From dear departed "Old White Hat!" Who thought Reformers could not err, And laid the lash on Dawson Kerr, Whom he in bitter hues did paint A sinner, and called him "the saint." A journal of more modern date Than the Gazette, who's early fate, Was Phoenix-like to rise resplendent From ashes ...

— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett

Words linked to "Tit for tat" : getting even, paying back, return