RETORT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Retort

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/rˈitˌɔrt/ Listen

noun

Retort n.

1.

The return of, or reply to, an argument, charge, censure, incivility, taunt, or witticism; a quick and witty or severe response. "This is called the retort courteous."

2.

(Chem. & the Arts) 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.

Tubulated retort (Chem.), a retort having a tubulure for the introduction or removal of the substances which are to be acted upon.

Synonyms: Repartee; answer. Retort, Repartee. A retort is a short and pointed reply, turning back on an assailant the arguments, censure, or derision he had thrown out. A repartee is usually a good-natured return to some witty or sportive remark.

verb

Retort v. t. (past & past part. retorted; pres. part. retorting)

1.

To bend or curve back; as, a retorted line. "With retorted head, pruned themselves as they floated."

2.

To throw back; to reverberate; to reflect. "As when his virtues, shining upon others, Heat them and they retort that heat again To the first giver."

3.

To return, as an argument, accusation, censure, or incivility; as, to retort the charge of vanity. "And with retorted scorn his back he turned."

Retort v. i. To return an argument or a charge; to make a severe reply.

See images of 'Retort'

Etymology of 'Retort'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books

... Ormond, who saw that Ida was about to make an angry retort, and judged that the discussion had gone far enough. "Come, you boys will be late if you don't make haste with your breakfast. Are you going to play football this ...

— Under Padlock and Seal • Charles Harold Avery

... instead of playing with it and tossing it about in a way that shall expose its absurdity or show its value. Freedom is lost with too much responsibility and seriousness, and the truth is more likely to be struck out in a lively play of assertion and retort than when all the words and sentiments are weighed. A person very likely cannot tell what he does think till his thoughts are exposed to the air, and it is the bright fallacies and impulsive, rash ventures in conversation that are often most fruitful to talker and listeners. ...

— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... passed through me as I listened to Summerlee. It was disgraceful that he should speak thus of the leader who had been the source of all our fame and given us such an experience as no men have ever enjoyed. I had opened my mouth to utter some hot retort, when Lord John ...

— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle

... other saints about the Eucharist?" Or, seeing that the Bible is full of the language of respiratory oppression, "one might almost as well interpret religion as a perversion of the respiratory function." And if it is pointed out that active interest in religion synchronises with adolescence, "the retort again is easy.... The interest in mechanics, physics, chemistry, logic, philosophy, and sociology, which springs up during adolescent years along with that in poetry and religion, is also a ...

— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen

... say to him that he professes an art of making appearances, he will grapple with us and retort our argument upon ourselves; and when we call him an image-maker he will say, 'Pray what do you mean at all by an image?'—and I should like to know, Theaetetus, how we can possibly answer the ...

— Sophist • Plato

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