requital
noun/ɹɪˈkwaɪt.əl/
Etymology From requite + -al, 1570-1580.
1
Compensation for damage or loss; amends.
2
Retaliation or reprisal; vengeance.
3
Return in kind; recompense, repayment, reward.
- O, take his mother's thanks, a widow's thanks, / Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength / To make a more requital to your love.c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
- My lord mayor, you have sundry times / Feasted myself and many courtiers more: / Seldom or never can we be so kind / To make requital of your courtesy.1599, Thomas Dekker, The Shoemaker's Holiday, act I, scene 1:
3 more examples
- In requittal [sic] of those well-intended offices, which you are pleased so emphatically to acknowledge, let me beg that you make in your devotions one petition for my eternal welfare.1791, James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (quoting Johnson)
- What is the requital that the Athenians of the earth give to those who have struggled through the stormy water, and the dark night, for their applause?—both reproach and scorn.1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, pages 309–310:
- But we are thinking here above all of the happiness that comes with the requital of love, of the case in which my love is returned with an equal love.2009, Dietrich von Hildebrand, The Nature of Love, page 233:
- Derived terms
- nonrequital