RETRIBUTION • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Retribution

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/rˌɛtrəbjˈuʃən/ Listen

noun

Retribution n.

The act of retributing; repayment. "In good offices and due retributions, we may not be pinching and niggardly."

That which is given in repayment or compensation; return suitable to the merits or deserts of, as an action; commonly, condign punishment for evil or wrong. "All who have their reward on earth,... Naught seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds."

Specifically, reward and punishment, as distributed at the general judgment. "It is a strong argument for a state of retribution hereafter, that in this world virtuous persons are very often unfortunate, and vicious persons prosperous."

Synonyms: Repayment; requital; recompense; payment; retaliation.

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Etymology of 'Retribution'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Retribution" Quotes from Famous Books

... girl's existence, and written there the fatal finis? If she died, could he escape the moral responsibility of having been her murderer? Amid the ebb and flow of conflicting emotions, one grim fact stared at him with sardonic significance. If he had ruined her life, retribution promptly exacted a costly forfeit; and his happiness was destined ...

— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... was most imposing, Diana. It's so much more romantic to end a story up with a funeral than a wedding. As for Cordelia, she went insane with remorse and was shut up in a lunatic asylum. I thought that was a poetical retribution ...

— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... that Heaven has never yet failed us. We remember how African women have at times shed tears under similar injustices; and how when they have been made to leave their fields with their hoes on their shoulders, their tears on evaporation have drawn fire and brimstone from the skies. But such blind retribution has a way of punishing the innocent alike with the guilty, and it is in the interests of both that we plead for some outside intervention to assist South Africa in ...

— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje

... least, excuses the fact; for it was only to hold up my daughter's mind to her own choice and liking: for her eyes only, and for no other's, that she might see some retribution, and thereby with the more constancy endure her imprisonment, having this only antidote to resist the poison of that place, company, and conversation; myself and all her friends barred from her, and no ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... retribution when millions upon millions perished. The great "City of the Golden Gates" had by this time become a perfect den of iniquity. The waves swept over it and destroyed its inhabitants, and the "black" emperor and his dynasty fell ...

— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot

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