Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Serving as a requital or retribution.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or relating to
retribution ; of the nature of retribution; involving retribution or repayment.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of or relating to or having the nature of retribution
- adjective given or inflicted in requital according to merits or deserts
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Prediction: the Saddam verdict will provoke retributory violence by radical Sunnis, with significant potential for Shi'ite militias to respond via death squads.
Poll: Dems Maintain Wide Lead Over GOP Despite Kerry Gaffe 2009
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I have already begun my retributory purposes, as I may call them.
Clarissa Harlowe 2006
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And yet, I could understand why Nat Turner would be driven to retaliate against a violent system by retributory violence.
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It must be that God had a retributory end in view in that great event.
Adèle Dubois A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick Mrs. William T. Savage
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Were even the gods not exempt from retributory justice?
Under the Rose Frederic Stewart Isham
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Strange was this retributory fate which had brought these two into the most intimate relations of husband and wife.
The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2)
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From the day when, as young men, both had been aspirants for the imperial throne of Germany and Francis had suffered defeat, the latter had assiduously devoted himself to the retributory task of gaining the ascendancy over his successful rival.
Under the Rose Frederic Stewart Isham
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In violent hands, but deadly sure and retributory.
The Bishop of Cottontown A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills John Trotwood Moore
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And when Dr. Martineau talks of the "natural penalties for guilt," and adds that "sin being there, it would be simply monstrous that there should be no suffering and would fully justify the despair which now raises its sickly cry of complaint against the retributory wretchedness of human transgression" (_Study_ II., p. 106), the reply is that there are no such things as "_natural_ penalties for guilt."
Theism or Atheism The Great Alternative Chapman Cohen
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It is not only a retributory and destructive fire, but a disciplinary and creative process, whose aim is the salvation, through unification, of the entire planet.
The Promised Day Is Come 1897-1957 Shoghi Effendi 1927
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