RETRIBUTION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Retribution

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/rˌɛtrəbjˈuʃən/ Listen

Retribution

noun

A justly deserved penalty. Synonym: requital.

The act of correcting for your wrongdoing.

The act of taking revenge (harming someone in retaliation for something harmful that they have done) especially in the next life. Synonyms: payback, vengeance. "For vengeance I would do nothing. This nation is too great to look for mere revenge" , "He swore vengeance on the man who betrayed him" , "The swiftness of divine retribution"

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Etymology of 'Retribution'

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"Retribution" Quotes from Famous Books

... hero should be the penalty for some fault or weakness. This view, which has the authority of Aristotle, is also based on the doctrine of the justice of the world-order. It was pretty consistently carried out in the classical Greek drama; although there suffering is not exacted as an external retribution, but as the inevitable consequence of the turbulent passions of the characters; for even the punishment for offenses against the gods is of the nature of a personal revenge which they take. Later, of course, when the gods retreated into the background of human life, retributive ...

— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... RETRIBUTION, n. A rain of fire-and-brimstone that falls alike upon the just and such of the unjust as have not procured shelter ...

— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... mingled jealousy and disdain which this low-born and aspiring minister had already provoked from the ancient nobility, by intruding himself into the order of the garter, and which served to heap upon his devoted head fresh coals of wrath against the day of retribution which was fast approaching. The act of transferring this title to a new family, could in fact be no otherwise regarded by the great house of Bourchier, which had long enjoyed it, than either as a marked indignity to itself, or as a fresh result of the general Tudor system of depressing ...

— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... that Miss Tresilyan had one subject of self-reproach, for which she had never gained her own absolution. The whispers that had never been quite silenced began to make themselves heard unpleasantly often, and now they just hinted at Retribution. As our poor Cecil must come to confession some time or another, it seems to me this is a ...

— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... thing it would be, ever to have wronged - say M. JULLIEN for example - and to have his avenging name in characters of fire incessantly before my eyes. Or to have injured MADAME TUSSAUD, and undergo a similar retribution. Has any man a self-reproachful thought associated with pills, or ointment? What an avenging spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil? CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? ...

— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens

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