comeuppance
/kʌmˈʌpəns/
comeuppance noun: retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.
Noun
comeuppance (usually uncountable, plural comeuppances)
- Retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.
- So when Brown's second wife turned out a reg'lar ternygrunt, I wa'n't in no wise upset, for he needed a comeuppance, an' he got it in her.1883, Albion Winegar Tourgée, editor, The Continent; an illustrated weekly magazine, volume 3
- The Sunday edition of the principal morning paper even expressed some bitterness under the heading, "Gilded Youths of the Fin-de-Siecle"--this was considered the knowing phrase of the time, especially for Sunday supplements--and there is no doubt that from certain references in this bit of writing...1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 10, in The Magnificent Ambersons
- Synonyms:
- just deserts, instant karma
comeuppance meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Arabic and Indonesian
comeuppance in Tamil
- ஏற்ற எதிர்விளைவு
comeuppance in Malayalam
- just deserts, just punishment, due
- അർഹിക്കുന്ന ശിക്ഷ, കിട്ടാൻ അർഹതയുള്ള ശിക്ഷ, പ്രവൃത്തിക്ക് യഥാർഹമായ ശിക്ഷ, കിട്ടേണ്ടത്, അർഹമായത്, ന്യായവിധി
comeuppance in Arabic
- an outcome that is justly deserved
- قِصَاص عَادِل qiṣāṣ ʕādil
comeuppance in Indonesian
- an outcome that is justly deserved
- kualat
Examples of comeuppance in a sentence
- George Amberson Minafer had not yet got his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating.1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 10, in The Magnificent Ambersons:
- The Yankees got their comeuppance in Milwaukee when the Braves piled up a record score for the first inning of a World Series game.1958 October 13, “Yankee Comeuppance in a Lousy Inning”, in Life, volume 45, number 15, page 34:
- What a wonderful Comeuppance for Humankind!2000, Thomas à Kempis, “[The Sacrament of the Altar: How to Prepare for It & What It Tastes Like] Frequency”, in William Griffin, transl....
- But even friends like Tom Downey thought a little comeuppance might not necessarily have been a bad thing for a man who approached life as if he were always the smartest person in the room.2014, Bill Turque, Inventing Al Gore: A Biography:
Synonyms of comeuppance
Forms of comeuppance
| plural | comeuppances |
|---|---|
| alternative form | come-uppance |
| alternative form | comeupance |
Origin of comeuppance
From come up (“to appear before a judge”) + -ance.
Words that rhyme with comeuppance
Questions about comeuppance
- What does comeuppance mean?
- Comeuppance means retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.
- What is comeuppance in Tamil?
- Comeuppance in Tamil is ஏற்ற எதிர்விளைவு. See Comeuppance meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use comeuppance in a sentence?
- George Amberson Minafer had not yet got his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating.
- What part of speech is comeuppance?
- Comeuppance is a noun.
- How do you pronounce comeuppance?
- Comeuppance is pronounced /kʌmˈʌpəns/.
- What is the plural of comeuppance?
- The plural of comeuppance is comeuppances.
Words near comeuppance in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: comeuppance (page history and authors); comeuppance (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); comeuppance (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-comeuppance.ogg.
Cite this entry: “comeuppance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/comeuppance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.