requite
Americanverb (used with object)
-
requites,
present (3rd person singular)
-
requited,
past participle, past
-
requiting
present participle
-
to make repayment or return for (service, benefits, etc.).
- Synonyms:
- reimburse, remunerate, pay, compensate, recompense, reward, repay
-
to make retaliation for (a wrong, injury, etc.); avenge.
- Synonyms:
- revenge
- Antonyms:
- forgive
-
to make return to (a person, group, etc.) for service, benefits, etc.
-
to retaliate on (a person, group, etc.) for a wrong, injury, etc.
-
to give or do in return.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
requitesimple
-
requitessimple
-
have requitedperfect
-
has requitedperfect
-
am requitingprogressive
-
are requitingprogressive
-
is requitingprogressive
-
have been requitingperfect progressive
-
has been requitingperfect progressive
Past
-
requitedsimple
-
had requitedperfect
-
was requitingprogressive
-
were requitingprogressive
-
had been requitingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of requite
Explanation
You can requite a friend’s kindness by doing your friend a favor or by being kind in return. Requite means "to repay or return." To requite something is to return it. However, saying that you want to requite a gift means that you want to give something in return for it — not that you want to return the gift to the store for some quick cash. Requite is often used in the context of love; if you requite someone’s love, you love that person back. Requite can also be used in a negative sense. Someone who wants to requite an injury wants payback for it.
Vocabulary lists containing requite
The Tragedy of Macbeth
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The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
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Beowulf
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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:
But still I crane my neck and track them at every opportunity, hoping I suppose to requite their deep indifference for me with my high regard for them.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 27, 2013
It would requite a lobotomy in order to speak as they do. paulejb Not difficult at all, Hollywood.
From Time ● Jul. 24, 2013
Therefore, in "the world as it is," you must requite evil with lesser evil.
From Salon ● Aug. 18, 2011
Did Mr. Anderson requite Ms. McKinney’s love, as she insists?
From New York Times ● Jul. 14, 2011
Replied Odysseus: “The young men, yes. And may the gods requite those insolent puppies for the game they play in a home not their own. They have no decency.”
From "The Odyssey" by Homer
Thou seest now, Edelwald, how France requites his service.
From The Lady of Fort St. John by Mary Hartwell Catherwood
His hatred of Raleigh—which, as we shall see hereafter, Raleigh not only bears patiently, but requites with good deeds as long as he can— springs, by his own confession, simply from envy and disappointed vanity.
From Sir Walter Raleigh and His Time by Charles Kingsley
Fortune requites my Sufferings With too large a share of Happiness.
From The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume II by Montague Summers
Sabitri replied, "O virtuous king, we are apt to repose more confidence in the righteous than in ourselves; their kindness amply requites our love and regard."
From The Hindoos as they Are A Description of the Manners, Customs and the Inner Life of Hindoo Society in Bengal by Shib Chunder Bose
After the inscription, "John Durer, formerly Minister to his Majesty the Emperor of Germany," the old man had written— "Heaven requites ingratitude."
From The Children's Portion by Robert W. Shoppell
Luckily for him, in Colwin’s world, the brief torture of falling in love is just prelude to the lifelong joy of finding your love requited.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 16, 2023
His love for the revolution was not always requited.
From New York Times ● Nov. 24, 2022
But there's a parallel thread of romance... a story of unrequited love that slowly became very requited indeed.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2022
But there’s something more that’s driving interest in Bennifer: the storybook nature of long-lost love requited.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 4, 2021
And love is not love if it’s not requited, right?
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
Not requiting any encouragement to get out of his seat was Fernandez's fitness coach, who would leap and shout, pointing fingers or waving clenched fists.
From Fox News ● Sep. 7, 2021
And yet, among the human lovers, she is perhaps the most active, from when she betrays her friend to score points with Demetrius, her formerly requiting unrequited crush.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2020
The beloved proletariat, so requiting during hard times, had, at first opportunity, run off with capitalism's traveling salesman.
From Time Magazine Archive
“Nay, that would be requiting me ill—returning evil for good—to take the wind out of my sails and make my news stale,” returned the Trader, with a good-natured laugh.
From The Buffalo Runners A Tale of the Red River Plains by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne
He afterwards meets a cavalier, who reveals himself as the dead man whose debts had been paid, and who is desirous of requiting that favour.
From The Science of Fairy Tales An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology by Edwin Sidney Hartland
Definitions 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.
