What's the difference between retaliate and retort?

Retaliate


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To return the like for; to repay or requite by an act of the same kind; to return evil for (evil). [Now seldom used except in a bad sense.]
  • (v. i.) To return like for like; specifically, to return evil for evil; as, to retaliate upon an enemy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Jordanian officials are aware of possible retaliation from an increasingly cornered Damascus, which this week accused Amman of "playing with fire" by opening its border to a military push.
  • (2) Tehran might also decide to retaliate by stepping up military support for Houthi Shia rebels in Yemen, who are fighting a Saudi-led alliance.
  • (3) In 2004, the dispute settlement body , the "judicial branch" of the WTO, ruled that the US had to reform its cotton subsidies or face "retaliation" from Brazil.
  • (4) Iran has vowed to retaliate against the ISA extension, passed unanimously on Thursday, saying it violated last year’s agreement with six major powers to curb its nuclear programme in return for lifting of international financial sanctions.
  • (5) There is all sorts of opacity which makes it easy for an employee to suffer retaliation.” Despite recent reforms to improve transparency and accountability, the organisation remains impervious to public scrutiny, with no established mechanism for freedom of information – a right which more than 100 governments around the world have enshrined in law, and is openly advocated by UN bodies such as Unesco.
  • (6) It would be foolish to bet that Saudi Arabia will exist in its current form a generation from now.” Memories of how the Saudis and Opec deliberately triggered an economic crisis in the west in retaliation for US aid to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war still rankle.
  • (7) Chief executive Louis Gallois said Beijing's refusal to allow Hong Kong Airlines to complete a $4bn order for the A380 super-jumbos amounted to "retaliation measures" over the policy, which came into force at the beginning of the year.
  • (8) The group repeatedly struck at Turkish cities in 2016 in retaliation for Ankara’s support for international efforts to suppress its activities in Syria and Iraq.
  • (9) Britain's high commissioner described him as "becoming ever more autocratic and intolerant of criticism" – and was expelled in retaliation .
  • (10) The Syrian military, overstretched by the civil war, has not retaliated, and it was not clear whether the embattled Syrian leader would choose to take action this time.
  • (11) Obama warned Moscow before the election to stop meddling, but reports have since emerged that he decided against retaliating after the CIA warned him Putin was behind it.
  • (12) The chances of retaliation against the eurozone by the Kremlin over the coming months are high.
  • (13) The top priority should be ensuring that women who report sexual abuse to not suffer retaliation by government security forces.
  • (14) Last month, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned that the extension would be viewed in Tehran as a breach of the nuclear accord and threatened retaliation.
  • (15) US hawks, such as senator Lindsey Graham, had suggested a boycott in retaliation for allowing Snowden to remain in the country.
  • (16) Officials in Amman concede it heightens a risk of retaliation from its increasingly cornered neighbour.
  • (17) The recent arrest of the brother, Liu Hui, may be particular retaliation for two incidents that broke the security cordon around Liu Xia and her isolation in her fifth-floor apartment in central Beijing.
  • (18) "I was afraid they might retaliate," she said, saying she feared for herself and her family after looking up secret service on the internet and seeing that some agents were sharpshooters.
  • (19) Even one destroyed life – and a 20-year sentence for a 39-year old filmmaker surely means the cruellest of all individual punishments – will lead to an even greater punishment and retaliation that may befall on the whole country.
  • (20) The UK was the first to respond with punitive measures, cutting all ties to the Iranian banking system and parliament, the Majlis, which retaliated on Sunday by calling for the expulsion of Britain's ambassador, Dominick Chilcott, and the permanent downgrading of bilateral relations.

Retort


Definition:

  • (n.) To bend or curve back; as, a retorted line.
  • (n.) To throw back; to reverberate; to reflect.
  • (n.) To return, as an argument, accusation, censure, or incivility; as, to retort the charge of vanity.
  • (v. i.) To return an argument or a charge; to make a severe reply.
  • (v. t.) The return of, or reply to, an argument, charge, censure, incivility, taunt, or witticism; a quick and witty or severe response.
  • (v. t.) A vessel in which substances are subjected to distillation or decomposition by heat. It is made of different forms and materials for different uses, as a bulb of glass with a curved beak to enter a receiver for general chemical operations, or a cylinder or semicylinder of cast iron for the manufacture of gas in gas works.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After I pointed this out, even with all the racist retorts he could muster, being told “he’s got you there mate” by his friends was the knockout that saved the night.
  • (2) I found their remarks a little ripe, if mostly well argued, although Nicholson's characterisation of the characters' default mindset as "Brown people bad, American people good" rather misses the obvious retort: "They wanna kill me, I wanna live."
  • (3) By measuring the solubility of Ni5As2 particles in a variety of aqueous solutions, we have determined that particulate Ni5As2 that might be produced during oil-shale retorting could be mobilized to the environment and made available to the cells of living organisms, including humans.
  • (4) Thus, it is possible that Ni5As2 could be solubilized and mobilized to the environment by the flooding of abandoned in situ retorts with ground water or by the disposal of oil-shale product water by spraying it on spent shale beds.
  • (5) The score should have been tied at 2-2 and the natural German retort that one of Geoff Hurst's goals in the 1966 World Cup was imaginary hardly makes the blunder of officials more palatable in Bloemfontein.
  • (6) In reply, Cameron retorts that the changes are infused with the moral purpose of bringing "new hope and responsibility" to benefits claimants.
  • (7) However, this evidence may have appeared stronger to the City of London police, HMRC and the Crown Prosecution Service when they first brought the charges than it did during the case, coming after revelations of phone-hacking and News Corporation's closure of the News of the World, which allowed Redknapp to continually express scorn and retort that he "did not have to tell the truth" to "that newspaper".
  • (8) "Would all these girls," he asks, with a sorrow that defies any glib, one-should-be-so-lucky retort, "be fucking me if they weren't getting paid?"
  • (9) Clinton shows strength over Trump in one of history's most significant debates Read more “It’s all words, it’s all soundbites,” he retorted after a particularly one-sided exchange, adding that Clinton was a “typical politician: all talk, no action”.
  • (10) The education secretary appeared to suggest that Graham was effectively helping opponents of the taxpayer-funded schools, which are independent of local authorities, to intimidate applicants – prompting Graham to retort that the arguments of Gove's department in resisting public disclosure "clearly failed to convince".
  • (11) Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre , Obvious Child tells the story of Donna, a standup comedian in Brooklyn whose chaotic life is a source of bemusement to her parents, who are unable to believe that their twentysomething daughter doesn’t even know how to do her taxes (“Nobody knows how to do their taxes!” Donna retorts, not wholly incorrectly.)
  • (12) The infant formulas were sterilized either by ultra-high temperature (UHT) treatment or by a conventional retort process to give products with low and high levels of MRPs and LAL, respectively.
  • (13) Similarly, Laura Bates's recent article on victim blaming should act as sufficient retort to anyone who thinks police chief KP Raghuvanshi's advice that women should carry chilli powder to prevent rape is symptomatic of a specifically Indian brand of misogyny.
  • (14) Obama, seemingly frustrated with Romney's elusiveness, retorted that it had been his opponent's strategy for 18 months.
  • (15) "That's an insult, Mr Black, that's an insult," Redknapp retorted.
  • (16) The bride retorts: “I’m the one who paid the quoted price.
  • (17) Carly Fiorina expertly defuses Trump on 'beautiful face' retort and foreign policy Read more The New York real estate mogul went out off his way to bash Carly Fiorina , the former Hewlett Packard CEO and GOP presidential rival with whom he sparred in Wednesday’s debate.
  • (18) Mailer punched Vidal at a party, prompting Vidal to retort: "Words fail Norman again."
  • (19) "Because the lawyer said it's legal," Bush retorted.
  • (20) The testicles were retorted at various intervals up to 24 hours.