retaliation

retaliation, reprisal, revenge, vengeance, retribution can all mean both the act of inflicting or the intent to inflict injury in return for injury, and the injury so inflicted. Retaliation implies a return of like for like, commonly a return of evil for evil

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so astonished by a blow as to lose the opportunity for retaliation

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he is never satisfied until he inflicts a retaliation for every injury, real or fancied

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sanguinary retaliation on the part of a rejected office-seeker— Swanberg

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could catch us flat-footed, could destroy our air fleet and its bases, and . . . there would then be no retaliation at all— Vannevar Bush

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Reprisal applies specifically to an act of retaliation indulged in for the sake of gaining redress of a grievance or of compelling an enemy or antagonist to cease unlawful acts. The term in legal use usually implies the seizure of property by force either as a means of getting compensation for one's own injuries or of inflicting punishment; when used in reference to nations, it need not imply an act of war

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declared an embargo in reprisal for the seizing of ships

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reprisals are illegal if they are not preceded by a request to remedy the alleged wrong— Cases & Materials on International Law

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American correspondents, too, sometimes work in danger of personal reprisals other than expulsion— Mott

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Revenge usually carries a strong implication of vindictiveness or sometimes of justifiable anger that is lacking in retaliation; the term more often applies to the desire or intent to inflict injury or to the gratification of that desire than to the actual infliction of injury

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he had his revenge

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'tis sweet to love; but when with scorn we meet, revenge supplies the loss with joys as great— Granville

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she went through agonies of jealousy and remorse, and fantasies of revenge, which amazed her with their violence— Wouk

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Vengeance may imply the avenging of a wrong done to oneself or another by measures that punish the offender so that he suffers in the same degree as his victim, but the term is also applicable to an act committed in gratification çf one's revenge

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vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink— Rom 12:19-20

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there was a time in my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable— Dickens

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the burning of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a plowman out of employ is a vengeful animal— Meredith

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Retribution also applies chiefly to a punishment inflicted in return for a wrong done. Distinctively it stresses the operation of strict justice, and is especially appropriate when merited punishment is administered, not by the victim, but by a higher power or impersonal chance

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his coat pockets ... a mess of broken eggs, studded with coins and miscellaneous objects. This mishap was retribu-tion for robbing nests—C. L. Barrett

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to be left alone and face to face with my own crime, had been just retribution— Longfellow

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Analogous words: punishment, disciplining or discipline, correcting or correction (see corresponding verbs at PUNISH): rec-ompensing or recompense, indemnification, repayment (see corresponding verbs at PAY)