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tit for tat
noun
- with an equivalent given in retaliation, as a blow for a blow, repartee, etc.:
He answered their insults tit for tat.
tit for tat
noun
- an equivalent given in return or retaliation; blow for blow
tit for tat
- Giving back exactly what one receives: “If you hit me, I'll do the same to you; it's tit for tat.”
Word History and Origins
Origin of tit for tat1
Word History and Origins
Origin of tit for tat1
Idioms and Phrases
Repayment in kind, retaliation, as in If he won't help with the beach clean-up, I won't run a booth at the bake sale; that's tit for tat . This term is believed to be a corruption of tip for tap , which meant “a blow for a blow.” Its current form dates from the mid-1500s.Example Sentences
Given the potential for a cyber tit-for-tat to escalate, Obama has even more incentive to find a diplomatic solution.
Other feminist sites have championed objectifying men in tit-for-tat fashion as empowering women.
This series of tit-for-tat bombings has created the most violent and volatile dynamic in Lebanon since the end of the civil war.
But the brewing scandal is about more than political tit-for-tat.
An argument over money provokes tit-for-tat hostage-takings between guerrilla commanders.
It requires some study to make out who is the speaker in the tit-for-tat of the dialogue.
Mr. Stanges play was an amusing comedy, dealing with domestic infelicityof the tit-for-tat orderin the old style.
It was therefore but tit-for-tat when Minos sent Athenian tributary boys and girls to fight his bull, the bullheaded Minotaur.
Was she saying to herself that this was tit-for-tat; a riposte for his "Sibyl" of their talk in the morning?
He had declared war against Bence; henceforth, he vowed, the tit-for-tat policy should be pursued with implacable thoroughness.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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