Reciprocate
verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 To exchange two things, with both parties giving one thing and taking another thing. transitive
"The USTR isn't reciprocating actual tariffs. It's just placing the biggest tariffs on the countries running the biggest trade surpluses."
- 2 alternate the direction of motion of wordnet
- 3 To give something else in response (where the "thing" may also be abstract, a feeling or action) To make a reciprocal gift. transitive
"I gave them apples from my tree; they reciprocated with a pie and some apple jelly."
- 4 act, feel, or give mutually or in return wordnet
- 5 To move backwards and forwards, like a piston. intransitive
"a reciprocating engine"
Show 1 more definition
- 6 To counter, retort or retaliate. intransitive
Example
More examples"Sami didn't reciprocate the same amount of emotional connection that Layla was giving him."
Etymology
From Latin recīprocātus, perfect passive participle of recīprocō (“to move back and forth”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from reciprocus (“back an forth, reciprocal, alternating”) + -ō (first conjugation verb-forming suffix), itself possibly from a phrase such as reque proque (“back and forth”), from re- (“back”), prō (“forwards”) and -que (“and”). See also reciprocal. Compare French réciproquer.
More for "reciprocate"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.