Word.ws English Dictionary

retaliating

retaliating is the present participle and gerund of retaliate.

Meaning of retaliate

Verb

retaliate (third-person singular simple present retaliates, present participle retaliating, simple past and past participle retaliated)

  1. (intransitive) To do something harmful or negative to get revenge for some harm; to fight back or respond in kind to an injury or affront.
    • John insulted Peter to retaliate for Peter's acid remark earlier.
  2. (transitive) To repay or requite by an act of the same kind.
    • One ambassador sent word to the duke's son that his visit should be retaliated.1634, T[homas] H[erbert], A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC

Questions about retaliating

What is retaliating the present participle and gerund of?
Retaliating is the present participle and gerund of retaliate.

Words near retaliating in the dictionary

  1. retakings
  2. retaliate
  3. retaliated
  4. retaliates
  5. retaliateth
  6. retaliating
  7. retaliatingly
  8. retaliation
  9. retaliationism
  10. retaliationist
  11. retaliationists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retaliating (page history and authors); retaliate (page history and authors). 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.

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