Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To make return for (something done or felt) in a similar or appropriate fashion.
  • transitive verb To avenge (an insult or wrongdoing).
  • transitive verb To respond to (another) or do something to or for (another) in return for that person's action or emotion:
  • transitive verb To get revenge on (another) for wrongdoing.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To repay (either good or evil).
  • In a bad sense, to retaliate; return evil for evil for or to; punish.
  • To return.
  • Synonyms Remunerate, Recompense, etc. (see indemnify), pay, repay, pay off.
  • noun Requital.
  • noun For counsel given unto the king is this thy just requite?

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To repay; in a good sense, to recompense; to return (an equivalent) in good; to reward; in a bad sense, to retaliate; to return (evil) for evil; to punish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To return in kind; To repay; to recompense; to reward.
  • verb To retaliate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb make repayment for or return something

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English requiten : re-, re- + quiten, to pay; see quit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English: re- + quite (to clear, pay up)

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Examples

  • Behold > [May He behold] 9 And what I cannot requite, +requite+ with usury. requite > [may He requite] usury > interest

    The Faerie Queene — Volume 01 Edmund Spenser

  • He is desperate to be shadow chancellor, the second most important role on the opposition frontbench after your own, and he will be unforgiving if you don't requite his ambition.

    Ed Miliband: You thought fighting your brother was tough. That was the easy bit Andrew Rawnsley 2010

  • Undoubtedly this liar of singular felicity would open his mouth and requite me for my St. Elias bear.

    A RELIC OF THE PLIOCENE 2010

  • Because I needed to learn how to do that, too: how to put together a query letter, and a synopsis oh, bless you, agents who do not requite a synopsis and how to think about having something larger than a short story out and under consideration.

    Nobody knew what kind of magic spell to use Kat Howard 2010

  • Because I needed to learn how to do that, too: how to put together a query letter, and a synopsis oh, bless you, agents who do not requite a synopsis and how to think about having something larger than a short story out and under consideration.

    Archive 2010-04-01 Kat Howard 2010

  • The report by the President's Cancer Panel emphasize how "the requite knowledge and technologies exist" to provide safe "alternatives" to cancer-causing agents.

    Karl Grossman: Cancer -- The Number One Killer -- And Its Environmental Causes 2010

  • The report by the President's Cancer Panel emphasize how "the requite knowledge and technologies exist" to provide safe "alternatives" to cancer-causing agents.

    Karl Grossman: Cancer -- The Number One Killer -- And Its Environmental Causes 2010

  • He had made her of none account, and she would requite the injury in full.

    A River So Long 2010

  • Fixing that problem would requite U.S. policy follow the roots of their support of the Taliban all the way up to the India/Pakistan animosity, and nothing--nothing--in the U.S.'s military-first strategy comes close to doing so.

    Robert Greenwald and Derrick Crowe: Failure, Not Progress, in Afghanistan Robert Greenwald 2010

  • What do you do if you are born too late to compete, if you love someone more than they can properly requite, if you realize the object of your worship is, in some fundamental way, a fraud?

    Freud’s Blind Spot Elisa Albert 2010

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