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:
The risks are growing as diplomatic efforts remain stalled and Iran threatens unrestrained retaliation.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 3, 2026
Liguori added that at Google "people are scared of retaliation and putting their career at risk. You feel you are being watched, you can't speak."
From BBC ● Oct. 21, 2026
They need to socialize a language of accountability that promotes rule of law, democracy, and due process while eschewing talk of retribution, retaliation, or political payback.
From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2026
“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
Besa glared at him, but he understood the danger of retaliation.
From "Copper Sun" by Sharon M. Draper
The moves follow a familiar pattern in U.S.-China negotiations of “limited escalations, symbolic retaliations, and carefully timed policy signals designed to probe the other side’s bottom line,” Gao said.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2025
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
Experts say that the war-fighting plans in general go from warning shots to single strikes to multiple retaliations and that the hardest question is whether there are reliable ways to prevent a conflict from escalating.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 21, 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
The result was continual jealousies, dissensions, and sometimes reprisals and retaliations.
From Government in the United States National, State and Local by James Wilford Garner
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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.
