Word.ws English Dictionary

retributionary

retributionary adjective: being or relating to retribution; retributive; retaliatory.

Adjective

retributionary (comparative more retributionary, superlative most retributionary)

  1. Being or relating to retribution; retributive; retaliatory.
    • Punishment, moreover, loses all its retributionary character [...]1877, Joseph Sylvester Clark, Henry Martyn Dexter, Alonzo Hall Quint, Isaac Pendleton Langworthy, Christopher Cushing, Samuel Burnham, The Congregational Quarterly, page 567
    • It might be thought, for example, that a rehabilitation approach simply costs more in both time and money than a retributionary approach. But while retributionary approaches may be a boon to the average taxpayer, they are a bane to ...1984, Charles F. Abel, Knute Martin, Frank H. Marsh, Punishment and Restitution: A Restitutionary Approach to Crime and the Criminal, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 4

Synonyms of retributionary

Forms of retributionary

comparativemore retributionary
superlativemost retributionary

Origin of retributionary

From retribution + -ary.

Questions about retributionary

What does retributionary mean?
Retributionary means being or relating to retribution; retributive; retaliatory.
What part of speech is retributionary?
Retributionary is an adjective.

Words near retributionary in the dictionary

  1. retributers
  2. retributes
  3. retributing
  4. retribution
  5. retributional
  6. retributionary
  7. retributionism
  8. retributionist
  9. retributionists
  10. retributions
  11. retributive

Source and license

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