retaliation
Americannoun
-
retaliations
plural
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of retaliation
Explanation
Retaliation is an act of revenge. Before you initiate retaliation on someone who has wronged you, consider whether he or she might have a ninja alter ego and a set of nunchucks stashed away. The noun retaliation stems from the Latin retaliare, meaning “pay back in kind.” Notice the word kind in that definition. Retaliation used to have both good and evil connotations. Now, though, it’s important to read that kind as synonymous with type or sort because retaliation has since lost its positive sense. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”
Vocabulary lists containing retaliation
Fahrenheit 451
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The Crucible
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The Hate U Give
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“With Riyadh promising retaliation and Washington weighing direct intervention, further airstrikes risk fueling another cycle of escalation rather than bringing the attacks to an end,” she said.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026
Survivors may not report their assault to law enforcement for any number of reasons, including a fear of retaliation, not believing the police would help and not believing the crime was important enough.
From Salon ● Oct. 10, 2026
Those, in turn, could trigger Iranian retaliation against Gulf energy infrastructure and American military bases, potentially pushing oil prices even higher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
The FCA had previously told Andriesz there was "insufficient evidence" to conclude there had been retaliation, a conclusion he believed made it harder to win a claim against BGC at tribunal.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist?
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
The cooling of tensions could draw U.S. investors back to Chinese stocks—after wariness about tit-for-tat retaliations between the two superpowers—and boost that market.
From Barron's ● May 15, 2026
And despite consistently pushing forward against a slick counter-striker in Adesanya, Strickland was able to avoid the majority of the champion's retaliations.
From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2023
Chastain got into both of them at different points, leading to a series of on-track retaliations.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 5, 2022
The agreement — which still needs to be finalized — comes after years of diplomatic tit-for-tat retaliations that have left the embassy badly understaffed, down from 1,200 personnel five years ago to just 120 now.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 3, 2021
In his watery little eyes and his protruding, childish lip, I read the story of fruitless excesses and of vain retaliations.
From The Romance of a Plain Man by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
