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Retaliate   Listen
verb
Retaliate  v. t.  (past & past part. retaliated; pres. part. retaliating)  To return the like for; to repay or requite by an act of the same kind; to return evil for (evil). (Now seldom used except in a bad sense.) "One ambassador sent word to the duke's son that his visit should be retaliated." "It is unlucky to be obliged to retaliate the injuries of authors, whose works are so soon forgotten that we are in danger of appearing the first aggressors."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retaliate" Quotes from Famous Books



... protestants, who would gladly retaliate the example of persecution, a clamour is raised of the increase of popery: and they are always loud to declaim against the toleration of priests and jesuits, who pervert so many of his majesty's subjects from their religion and allegiance. On the present occasion, the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon

... level of conversation; 'all these transcendentalisms apart, I am about the most unfit man in the world for a college tutor. The undergraduates regard me as a shilly-shallying pedant. On my part,' he added drily, 'I am not slow to retaliate. Every term I live I find the young man a less interesting animal. I regard the whole university system as a wretched sham. Knowledge! It has no more to do with knowledge than ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... she had succeeded, but the price was still to pay. The reactionaries, supported by Austria and the Romish Church, were quick to retaliate by waging remorseless war against the King's mistress; and, among their most powerful weapons, used the students' clubs of Munich, who, from being Lola's most enthusiastic admirers, became ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... convinced, which, previous to our embarkation, had been by some attributed to a different cause. It was supposed that the men in office throughout the country, piqued at the refusal of the Embassador to submit to their degrading ceremony, would not fail to retaliate the affront by depriving us of every little comfort and convenience, and by otherwise rendering the long journey before us extremely unpleasant. The character of the people at large justified such a conclusion; and, I believe, every individual ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... interest to most men, have (unless they are connected with gain or loss of money) no interest for me. But now, I swear, I mix up with the loss, his triumph in telling it. If he had brought it about,—I almost feel as if he had,—I couldn't hate him more. Let me but retaliate upon him, by degrees, however slow—let me but begin to get the better of him, let me but turn the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... person, Mr. Belknap-Jackson yet retained a fine native caution which counselled him to attempt no violence upon that offender; but his mental tension was such that it could be relieved only by his attacking some one; preferably some one forbidden to retaliate. I walked there temptingly but a pace ahead of him, after my ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... prejudice creeps in, and I might retaliate by charging you with vanity as you have done me,—only that I think such vanity very natural. But it is her you should consult on such a matter. She is not to be treated like a child. Of whom does she wish to become the wife? I boldly say that I have won her love, and ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... something else to say; and this letter has run to an unconscionable length, I shall now give you a little respite, and trouble you again by the very first post. I wish you would take it in your head to retaliate these double strokes upon ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... accompanied the Emperor to Godjam, when, without reason given, the Emperor cast him into prison and loaded him with chains. It was only on the representation of several influential merchants, who, fearing that the Nab's relations would retaliate on the Abyssinian caravans, impressed upon his Majesty the prudence of letting him depart, that the Emperor allowed his vassal to return to ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc

... prisoners back to headquarters and turned them over. I want to say a word right here as to the treatment of the German prisoners by the British. In spite of the verified stories of the brutality shown to the Allied prisoners by the Hun, the English and French have too much humanity to retaliate. Time and again I have seen British soldiers who were bringing in Germans stop and spend their own scanty pocket money for their captives' comfort. I have done ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes

... effort of mirth, he would limp behind as she walked across the floor, unconscious of his close attendance, and when she would turn suddenly and detect him, and shake her clinched fist at him, half in jest, he would retaliate by a similar gesture, and scowl, and stamp of the foot, that so nearly resembled her own proceedings as to cause me much internal merriment. But of course for his own advantage, as well as from regard for her feelings, it was necessary for me on such occasions to assume a gravity of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... The blows of the thrasher, a large fish, of the same species as the whale, given with incredible force and noise on the back of the whale, were now answered by his more unwieldy antagonist, who lashed the sea with fury in his attempts to retaliate upon his more active assailant; and while the contention lasted, the water ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... region which her sting has rendered insensible, so that the first mouthfuls are only feebly resented. But as the enemy goes deeper and deeper "it sometimes happens that the cricket, bitten to the quick, attempts to retaliate; but it only succeeds in opening and closing the pincers of its mandibles on the empty air, or in uselessly waving its antennae." Vain efforts: "for now the voracious beast has bitten deep into the spot, and can with impunity ransack the entrails." What a slow and ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

... merciless foe to peace? He rends one's heart into shreds; he stabs in the dark; he thrusts, cuts and slashes and the wounds never heal; he blinds without pity; he is overbearing, domineering, ruthless and his victims are powerless to retaliate. Love is the greatest tyrant in all the world, Mr. Schmidt, and we poor wretches can never hope to conquer him. We are his prey, and he is rapacious. Do you not ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... used such severities and cruelties at Villa Real as to oblige me to retaliate. I am willing to spare a town if under your protection. I know that you cannot pretend to defend it with the horse you have, which will be so much more useful in another place if joined with the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty

... resentment was chiefly directed against the man whose every word and glance, although he was but a stranger, had seemed to possess a power to annoy and wound from the first. She felt an almost venomous desire to retaliate; but he appeared invulnerable in his quiet and easy superiority, while she, who expected, as a matter of course, that all masculine thoughts should follow her admiringly, had been compelled to see that his critical eyes had detected that in her ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... my sister, lobbed a novel on to my brother-in-law's back, and withdrew before he had time to retaliate. Then I stepped barefoot downstairs, to perform ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... knife and will prevent disturbances in the State. But no younger man will strike an elder; reverence will prevent him from laying hands on his kindred, and he will fear that the rest of the family may retaliate. Moreover, our citizens will be rid of the lesser evils of life; there will be no flattery of the rich, no sordid household cares, no borrowing and not paying. Compared with the citizens of other States, ours will be Olympic victors, and crowned with blessings greater still—they and their ...
— The Republic • Plato

... appearing before, the other after the thousand years. We have often found the enemies of the church called in the Apocalypse by the names of persecutors under the Old Testament;—Babylon, Egypt, etc.—We may consider the "fowls," the birds of prey, as symbolizing the kings who retaliate upon Babylon; (as in ch. xvii. 16;) or rather, as the Lord's people reclaiming their own, of which they had been unjustly and long deprived,—"spoiling the Egyptians." ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele

... satisfied that the Indians would retaliate upon them, for these unprovoked aggressions, either returned to the interior of the country, or gathered in forts, and made preparation for resistance. The assembly of the colony of Virginia being then in session, an express was sent to the seat of government, ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake

... is such a delicate and finely adjusted piece of mechanism that any excess is liable to clog its workings and put it out of order. It is made for sufficiency alone. Nature never intended man to be a glutton; and she seldom fails to retaliate and avenge excesses by pain, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton

... under it, and Sir James having withdrawn his force from within the Baltic, owing to the lateness of the season, it was no longer in his power to rescue it in that quarter; but he had still a sufficient force in Hawke Roads, and might, had he been compelled to retaliate, have totally ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross

... bedlam in the valley, and not one of the men attempted to retaliate by firing back. They were ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor

... Avenge thy father, And for the wrongs of Eglymi Wilt retaliate. Thou wilt the cruel, The sons of Hunding, Boldly lay low: ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... to retire in disgust from the world, Glicera, the victim of fickle man in "The City Jilt" (1726) determines to retaliate upon the lover who has ruined and abandoned her when the death of her father left her without a fortune or a protector. To secure her revenge she encourages the advances of a senile alderman, Grubguard by name, whom she takes ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher

... by the recollection that Swercus himself had formerly injured Nicholas, a predecessor of Sweno on the throne, by perfidiously seducing, and marrying his intended bride—an injury all the bitterer, as Nicholas never could retaliate it, by reason of domestic broils with ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby

... consideration than any other, having been evidently intended to be a protection not only to the Peloponnese, but to all the Hellenes against the Barbarians. For the capture of Troy by the Achaeans had given great offence to the Assyrians, of whose empire it then formed part, and they were likely to retaliate. Accordingly the royal Heraclid brothers devised their military constitution, which was organised on a far better plan than the old Trojan expedition; and the Dorians themselves were far superior to the Achaeans, who had taken part in that expedition, and had ...
— Laws • Plato

... to put spectacles on!" As it happened, poor Mr. Thomson had, by some accident or disease, so little of a nose left, if any at all, that the bridge of the nose for holding up the spectacles was almost entirely wanting. And thus did the fishwife retaliate on her ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... see Harrwitz, and would look round the room and even under the chairs for him when he was sitting at his elbow, which greatly annoyed Harrwitz, who, however, sometimes got a turn, and was not slow to retaliate. In a game one day, Staunton materially damaged his own prospects by playing very tamely and feebly, and testily complained—"I have lost a move." Harrwitz told the waiter to stop his work, and search the room ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird

... and conceal, and the repression of which would in time have become a second nature. I know that there is another side to the question. I grant that the wife, if she cannot effectually resist, can at least retaliate; she, too, can make the man's life extremely uncomfortable, and by that power is able to carry many points which she ought, and many which she ought not, to prevail in. But this instrument of self-protection—which ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill

... is not a gentleman; John is," simply. "But Mr. McQuade hasn't forgotten; not he. He pays no attention to any of us; but that is no sign that he does not think a good deal. However, we do not worry. There is no possible chance for him to retaliate; at least John declares there isn't. But sometimes I grow afraid when I think it all over. To his mind I can see that he considers himself badly affronted; and from what I know of his history, he never lets an affront pass without striking back ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath

... zealous partisans of the revolution who fell into their hands. These examples had unquestionably some influence in unbridling the revengeful passions of the royalists, and letting loose the spirit of slaughter which was brooding in their bosoms. The disposition to retaliate to the full extent of their power, if not to commit original injury, was equally strong in the opposite party. When fort Granby surrendered, the militia attached to the legion manifested so strong a disposition ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... of juvenile applause greeted her as she hurried into the parlor, and a number of grown people smiled quite musically. Her quick woman wit showed her how to retaliate and divide the embarrassment of the occasion. As she passed me she said in ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)

... which we wound our slow way. From time to time a shout arose, as some conspicuous member of the Convention made his appearance in the vehicle of death: then execrations, scoffs, and insults, of every bitterness, were poured upon the unfortunate being; who seldom attempted to retaliate, or make any other return but a gesture of despair, or a supplication to be suffered to die in peace. Yet all was not cruelty nor insensibility. I saw instances, where friends, bold enough to brave the vengeance of the government, rushed forward to take ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... quickly round and prepared to retaliate, but quailing under the stern glance of his better half, he obeyed her will, and meekly slunk out ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday

... been very partial to General Worth—indeed he continued so up to the close of hostilities—but, for some reason, Worth had become estranged from his chief. Scott evidently took this coldness somewhat to heart. He did not retaliate, however, but on the contrary showed every disposition to appease his subordinate. It was understood at the time that he gave Worth authority to plan and execute the battle of Molino del Rey without dictation ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... certainly not. That isn't my way. You have driven me from you, and I might claim the right to retaliate, but I don't. I've no expectation that you'll go away, and I want to see what else you'll do. You would have me, before we were married; you were tolerably shameless in getting me; when your jealous temper made you throw me away, you couldn't live till you got me back ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... me what to do. I want to retaliate. I want to discover who is watching me, and why. Can you advise ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade

... joy, Henry, I do, indeed—and I promise you I will do all I can to help you through with it. I won't retaliate for your thundering niggardness five years ago, when you would not even be my best man, ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn



Words linked to "Retaliate" :   strike back, retaliation, get back, strike, penalise, get even



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