Word.ws English Dictionary

retortful

retortful adjective: tending to retort or answer back.

Adjective

retortful (comparative more retortful, superlative most retortful)

  1. Tending to retort or answer back.
    • Notwithstanding the padre's regretful humiliations, from a lack of thoughtful consideration, he could not withhold a retortful reminder from his old noli me tangere opponent, of his more flagrant assumption;1877, Elton R. Smilie, The Manatitlans: Or, A Record of Scientific Explorations in the Andean La Plata, S.A., page 466
    • Josh was in trouble at school today for being retortful!2011, Maggie Makepeace, Out of Step, A&C Black, →ISBN

Forms of retortful

comparativemore retortful
superlativemost retortful

Origin of retortful

retort + -ful

Questions about retortful

What does retortful mean?
Retortful means tending to retort or answer back.
What part of speech is retortful?
Retortful is an adjective.

Words near retortful in the dictionary

  1. retorted
  2. retorter
  3. retorters
  4. retortest
  5. retorteth
  6. retortful
  7. retorting
  8. retortion
  9. retortions
  10. retortive
  11. retorts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retortful (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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Cite this entry: “retortful.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/retortful. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.