Word.ws English Dictionary

talion

UK/ˈtalɪən/

talion noun: retaliation; retribution.

Noun

talion (uncountable)

  1. Retaliation; retribution.
    • Simple talion may be fine for wartime, but politics between wars demands symmetry and a more elegant idea of justice, even to the point of masquerading, a bit decadently, as mercy.1973, Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Origin of talion

From Middle French talion, from Latin talis (“such”).

Words formed from talion

Questions about talion

What does talion mean?
Talion means retaliation; retribution.
What part of speech is talion?
Talion is a noun.
How do you pronounce talion?
Talion is pronounced /ˈtalɪən/ (UK).

Words near talion in the dictionary

  1. Talinhugon
  2. talinolol
  3. talins
  4. talinum
  5. talinums
  6. talion
  7. talionic
  8. Talipapa
  9. talipat
  10. talipats
  11. taliped

Source and license

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