noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Violent or otherwise punitive response to an act of harm or perceived injustice; a hitting back; revenge. uncountable, usually

   "Hamas knew there would be massive retaliations."

2. 2
   action taken in return for an injury or offense wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

alternationamendsatonementavengementavengingbalancing

Example

More examples

"Threats of retaliation are blocking negotiations."

Etymology

From retaliate + -ion.

Related phrases

anticipatory retaliationmassive retaliation

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.