Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use retaliate in a sentence

18 example sentences · verb

Retaliate means to do something harmful or negative to get revenge for some harm; to fight back or respond in kind to an injury or affront. Example: “John insulted Peter to retaliate for Peter's acid remark earlier.”

Examples of retaliate by meaning

verbTo do something harmful or negative to get revenge for some harm; to fight back or respond in kind to an injury or...

  • John insulted Peter to retaliate for Peter's acid remark earlier.
  • Many companies have policies in place to prevent bosses from retaliating against allegations of harassment.

More sentences with retaliate

  • If you stab him in the heart he won't live long enough to retaliate.From the entry stab
  • Although severely provoked, she showed admirable restraint in not retaliating.From the entry in
  • Look at the amount of destruction to the enemy base. We pretty much killed their ability to retaliate.From the entry kill
  • The Braves retaliated by plunking Harper in the next inning.From the entry plunk
  • Via my immigrant supershero, I retaliate against labels of exotic, submissive, or compliant women, stereotypes we encounter as South Asian Americans.2019, Women and Migration - Responses in Art and History, page 331. From the entry supershero
  • It just seems weird (prima-donnaish?) to wait a month (until he has an awesome outing under his belt) to retaliate.1992 July 20, [Heather] <hhenderson@vax.clarku.edu>, “Baseball Buns: Rocket Roger [Clemens]'s Latest”, in rec.sport.baseball (Usenet)…. From the entry prima-donnaish
  • It was a way to terrorize someone more famous, get even with a rival or retaliate against someone with different political views.2020 January 23, Sheera Frenkel, “People Are Calling SWAT Teams to Tech Executives’ Homes”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry swatting
  • But that same bully was quicker than scat to rat her out when she retaliated and gave him a severe pounding when she was bigger.2020, Christianne Van Keuren, Sylvan Elf Chronicles: Battle for Elvenfeld, page 24. From the entry quicker than scat
  • The nonwhites soon learned that to retaliate against the white-murderers of their people was not the will of the Americanized, Christianistic “God.”2003, William James, The Skin Color Syndrome Among African-Americans, Page 65. From the entry christianistic
  • There was no counterdemolition to retaliate for the wholesale destruction carried out by the Civil Guards in the Finnish territory ceded to Russia.1943, Gregory Meiksins, chapter X, in The Baltic Riddle, New York: L. B. Fischer, page 185. From the entry counterdemolition
  • Fritz retaliated with machine-guns and whizz-bangs.1929 November, Robert Graves, chapter XII, in Good-bye to All That: An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 139. From the entry whizz-bang
  • It is memory-holing the entire “do not retaliate” episode and moving on as if the point this whole time was to get along better with Beijing.2025 May 12, Jonathan Chait, “China Called Trump’s Bluff”, in The Atlantic. From the entry memory-hole
  • The National Labor Relations Board petitioned in federal court to force Starbucks (SBUX) to rehire three workers who claimed the coffee chain retaliated against them for attempting to unionize.2022 April 25, Ramishah Maruf, “US labor board sues Starbucks to rehire unionizing employees”, in CNN. From the entry rehire
  • “At the same time, island communities — especially in coastal areas, where the effect of population loss was often enormous — sometimes retaliated against blackbirding raids.”2000, Kate Fortune, Brij V. Lal, The Pacific Islands: An Encyclopedia – Volume 1, University of Hawaiʻi, →ISBN, page 208. From the entry blackbird
  • The most popular singers have been obliged to give free tickets and even to donate cash, lest the claque retaliate by frantic applause at the wrong moment.1930 February 23, “Theatre claqueurs in Vienna form union; now get two Wienerwursts for simple applause, six with beer for special…. From the entry claque
  • “Sertainly, yuh dam fool!” snorted Pharaoah; “that's why I'm reciprocating.” “Aw, apple-grease!” howled Rameses; “I know yer daughter pritty well, an' I klaim yew are retaliating!”1927, Albert J. Bromley, “Men Wot Histery Have Overlooked”, in Tha Return Uv Snowshoe Al, Minton, Balch, page 97. From the entry apple grease

Meaning of retaliate

  1. verb To do something harmful or negative to get revenge for some harm; to fight back or respond in kind to an injury or affront.
  2. verb To repay or requite by an act of the same kind.

Full definition of retaliate

Questions about retaliate in a sentence

How do you use retaliate in a sentence?
Retaliate is used as a verb. For example: “John insulted Peter to retaliate for Peter's acid remark earlier.”
What is a short sentence with retaliate?
“Fritz retaliated with machine-guns and whizz-bangs.”
What does retaliate mean?
Retaliate means to do something harmful or negative to get revenge for some harm; to fight back or respond in kind to an injury or affront.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retaliate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use retaliate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/retaliate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.