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Retaliate   /rɪtˈæliˌeɪt/  /ritˈæliˌeɪt/   Listen
Retaliate

verb
(past & past part. retaliated; pres. part. retaliating)
1.
Take revenge for a perceived wrong.  Synonyms: avenge, revenge.
2.
Make a counterattack and return like for like, especially evil for evil.  Synonym: strike back.  "The Giants struck back and won the opener" , "The Israeli army retaliated for the Hamas bombing"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Retaliate" Quotes from Famous Books



... profit by it, of exciting the jealousy of other governments, by reclaiming against the exercise, on the part of England, of a species of assault which England, from her maritime predominance, has more temptations and better means to adopt than any other power. He resolved, therefore, to retaliate by a wholly unprecedented outrage. The very night that the resolution of the cabinet of St. James's reached Paris, orders were given for arresting the persons of all English subjects residing or travelling within the dominion ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart

... Marvin Hughitt, Mr. E. W. Winter, Mr. W. H. Truesdale, and the others, as it would be to question that of the most upright man in England. The fact is that the conditions are almost unthinkable to Englishmen. No company, in becoming party to the agreement, had surrendered its right to retaliate when another violated the provisions. The actual conduct of the business of the companies—the quoting of the rates to secure the traffic—was in the hands of a host of subordinate officials, and when a rate is cut ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... old agrarian system under a new set of more mercenary landlords, pursuing the old policy of rack-rents and evictions. In the three years 1849-1852, 58,423 families were evicted, or 306,120 souls. Aroused from the stupor of the famine, the peasants had to retaliate with the same old defensive policy of outrage. Peaceful agitation was of no use. The Tenant League of North and South, formed in 1852, claimed in vain the simplest of the rights granted under pressure of ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... this morning!" Although you tell him "no" and shake your head, he follows you for half a block. Meanwhile you are badgered by dealers in scarabs, beads, stamps, postal cards, silver shawls and various curios, who dog your heels, and, when you finally lose your temper, retaliate by shouting: "Yankee!" through their noses. These street peddlers are wonderfully keen judges of nationality and they manage to make life a burden to the American tourist by their unwearied and ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch

... the villain, his deadly enemy, would certainly take to himself the applause bestowed on the clever beasts. With this, he grasped the reed pipe in the breast of his tunic. He had been on the point of using it before now, to retaliate on Melissa for some portion of the pain she had inflicted on him. At this thought, however, the paltriness of such revenge struck him with horror, and with a hasty impulse he snapped the pipe in two, and flung the pieces on the ground in front of the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... son, named Uffe, shrinking from a conflict, transported his army into Denmark, thinking it better to assail the house of his enemy than to guard his own, and deeming it a timely method of repelling his wrongs to retaliate upon his foe what he was suffering at his hands. Thus the Danes had to return and defend their own, preferring the safety of their land to lordship of a foreign realm; and Uffe went back to his own country, now ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... first astounded, then hot at the grossness of this insinuation, and his strong, brown hands clinched in the instinct to punish—to retaliate—but his anger cooled to the level of words, and he said: "This interview has more than convinced me of the justice of Lambert's distrust of you. I shall see him again and repeat the warning I have already given." And with these words he turned and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland

... have stated, among the most lawless of the barbarous tribes of the East and of Africa. It is quite out of the question that her majesty's loyal subjects, invited to their habitations, and fixed in them, by her majesty's authority and that of her predecessors, should not endeavour to retaliate the sufferings thus inflicted upon them, unless protected by the strong arm of government; but how can government protect them, except by taking strong measures, when these persons are found invading her majesty's dominions for the purpose of plundering and destroying ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... by sheer force of will; in a battle of one will against thousands the one had conquered, and would hold its own till it had administered the hard home-thrust which would make the thousands wince and retaliate. ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall

... had, with unbridled tongue, made havoc of his plans; and he could at least retaliate by hurting the man in whose eyes he was humiliated and ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling

... is often a work of no little danger; for when a young bull, who has been roaming at liberty since his calfhood, finds himself thus treated, he is apt to turn on his tormentors, and to attempt to retaliate. A considerable mob of cattle had to be branded at Warragong, and all the hands who could be collected were employed in driving them into the pound. To get them there was difficult; to hold them quiet while being marked was still more so. One young and very ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston

... I, rising. A hot flush of indignation swept over me. I understood. It was his revenge. To have a man make sport of you after he is dead and gone, leaving you impotent and with never a chance to retaliate! "Keep it," I said again; "throw it away, or burn it. I understand. He has satisfied a petty revenge. It is an insult not only to me, but to my dead parents. You are, of course, acquainted with the circumstances of my mother's marriage. She married ...
— Arms and the Woman • Harold MacGrath

... ducking and clinching to avoid punishment. He occasionally feinted, shook his head when the weight of a punch landed, and moved stolidly about, never leaping or springing or wasting an ounce of strength. Sandel must foam the froth of Youth away before discreet Age could dare to retaliate. All King's movements were slow and methodical, and his heavy-lidded, slow-moving eyes gave him the appearance of being half asleep or dazed. Yet they were eyes that saw everything, that had been trained to see everything through all his twenty years and odd in the ring. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London

... pardonable. We must not look to men who are leading a revolt against established modes of thought for a full appreciation of the doctrines of their antagonists; and if De Quincey could recognise no merit in Voltaire or Rousseau, in Locke, Paley, or Jeremy Bentham, their followers were quite prepared to retaliate in kind. One feels, however, that such prejudices are more respectable when they are the foibles of a strong mind engaged in active warfare. We can pardon the old campaigner, who has become bitter in an internecine contest. It is not quite so pleasant ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... then those beastly monkeys, I always understood that if you flung stones at them they would retaliate by flinging cocoa-nuts at you. Would you believe it, I flung a hundred stones, and not one monkey had sufficient intelligence to grasp my meaning. ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie

... and Great Britain are allies. Besides, they might retaliate by spiflicating our agent in Damascus. Wise folk who live in glass-houses don't throw stones. What I think has been accomplished is to reduce our probable risk down to Yussuf Dakmar, who's a mean squib at best; and I think we've drawn suspicion clear away from Mabel Ticknor. ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy

... notes directed to Desnoyers. The brother-in-law continued giving an account of his operations the same as when living on the ranch under his protection. But with this deference was now mixed a badly concealed pride, an evident desire to retaliate for his times of voluntary humiliation. Everything that he was doing was grand and glorious. He had invested his millions in the industrial enterprises of modern Germany. He was stockholder of munition factories as big as towns, and of navigation companies launching a ship every half year. The ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... inveterate hatred of England, which dated from before the Revolution. Since the Treaty of 1783 the English seemed to act deliberately with studied truculence, as if the Americans would not and could not retaliate. They were believed to be instigating the Indians to continuous underhand war. They had reached that dangerous stage of truculence, when they did not think it mattered whether they spoke with common diplomatic reticence. ...
— George Washington • William Roscoe Thayer

... be present, and hold it where it would ignite the alleged house, and then remain near there to see that the fire department did not meddle with it, he would confer a great favor on one who would cheerfully retaliate in ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye



Words linked to "Retaliate" :   get even, punish, penalize, retaliatory, strike, retaliator, get back, retaliation, penalise, hit



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