Retaliate

How to spell retaliate

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce retaliate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does retaliate mean?

1. verbTo respond to a harm, insult, or attack by doing something equally damaging in return.

Retaliate in a sentence

• The company chose not to retaliate when a rival poached its staff.

• If one country raises tariffs, the other may retaliate with its own.

Where does retaliate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb retaliare, meaning 'to pay back in kind', formed from re- 'back, in return' and talis 'of such a kind' or 'the like'. The same talis root underlies the legal phrase lex talionis, the 'law of retaliation', which captured the old principle of an eye for an eye: a punishment matched exactly to the offence. English adopted the verb in the early 1600s, at first carrying the neutral sense of returning a favour or a benefit, but it quickly narrowed to mean repaying an injury, insult, or attack. Because the idea of giving back 'the like' is built right into the spelling, it can help to picture the tali- core as 'tally', a matching count returned to the other side. The single l and single t often trip writers who expect a doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• re- (back, in return)
• tali- (from Latin talio: like for like)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)