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Retort   Listen
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."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Retort" Quotes from Famous Books



... more appeared dubious, and made no answer; but she noticed that the man now preceded them, and raised his hand when they came up with the band, which had apparently halted to indulge in retort or badinage with some of those who ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... as brass yourself!" would be the irate retort of the old woman, nodding her head that was adorned with a red and yellow bonnet, ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... envy!" was the retort. "Look at him!" and he pointed at some scraggly bunches on chin and cheeks which resembled a young grass plat that had ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... from Germany that she would disarm, it would have been an opportunity for me, with the help of the nations, to exercise the greatest possible pressure on Germany's leaders. But the sword was knocked out of my hand by the Entente themselves, for the retort came from Berlin: Here is the proof that the Entente rejects our offer of disarmament as they reject everything coming from us. There is only one way out of it—a fight to the end ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... was something very frank and brave in her suggestions; but she had the worst of it, for the girl began to resist and retort upon her assailant angrily, her eyes flashing as she struggled bravely to drag her wrist away; but she was almost helpless against the strong muscles of the man, and the next moment she turned upon Pen an appealing look, as she uttered one word which could ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn

... retort cutting, and not because he was amused. Bud swore and went out, slamming the ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... "I won't retort the question about 'something sharp,'" said Constance arching her eyebrows, "because it is against my principles to make people uncomfortable; but you have certainly brought in some medicine with you, for Miss Ringgan's cheeks a little while ago ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... virtues, I do not yet think the Australian savage is more? vicious in his propensities or more virulent in his passions than are the larger number of the lower classes of what are called civilized communities. Well might they retort to our accusations, the motives and animus by which too many of our countrymen have been ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre

... replied that the type was too rough and common: it was not Christ but a peasant. Christ, of course, was a peasant; but by peasant Brunelleschi meant a stupid, dull man. Donatello, chagrined, had recourse to what has always been a popular retort to critics, and challenged him to make a better. Brunelleschi took it very quietly: he said nothing in reply, but secretly for many months, in the intervals of his architecture, worked at his own version, and then one ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... something about Liszt or Chopin, you may quote this; not forgetting the allusion to George Sand. To mention Chopin without Sand would be considered excessively inaccurate. I call the story, "Liszt's Clever Retort." ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker

... day—or any day, as strong as the fight any man of yours can ever make!" This retort of Yahn was met with half frightened giggles by the other women. Saeh-pah had been unlucky in the matter of men. Yet, her list of favorites had not been limited, and the sarcasm of Yahn ...
— The Flute of the Gods • Marah Ellis Ryan

... fell within the lion's ambuscade. "Has not my service glorious Made both of us victorious?" Cried out the much-elated ass. "Yes," said the lion; "bravely bray'd! Had I not known yourself and race, I should have been myself afraid!" The donkey, had he dared, With anger would have flared At this retort, though justly made; For who could suffer boasts to pass ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine

... angry, for like a boy he took not chaffing lightly, and had neither the harshness of hide which can endure the rasping of a woman's tongue, nor the quickness of speech to give her the counter retort. ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... flower-beds in front of the French barracks there—"but, of course, the French are an artistic people. You can allow them liberties like that." Every now and then in the papers one runs across some anecdote from France in which the Frenchman is permitted to make the retort at ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... reports of the conference stressed Gibson's confirmation of the division's disappointing performance, but neglected the reasons he advanced to explain its failure. The reports earned a swift and angry retort from the black community. Many (p. 133) organizations and journals condemned Gibson's evaluation of the 92d outright. Some seemed less concerned with the possible accuracy of his statement than with the effects it might have on the development of future military policy. The NAACP's Crisis, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... can be filled, but the heart of man never," quoted the pipe-maker in retort. "Oh, most incapable of story-tellers, have you not on two separate occasions slept beneath my utterly inadequate ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... you tell me, madame," said I with my most agreeable air, "whether you recollect having sold any of that tinsel ribbon lately, and to whom?" She was not likely to have much custom, I thought, and her clients would be easily remembered. "What's that to you?" was her retort, as she paused in her meal and stared at me; "do you want to buy the rest of it?" I took the hint immediately, and produced my purse. "With all the pleasure in life," I said, "if you will do me the favour I ask." She darted a keen look at me, laughed, pushed her cheese aside, ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford

... This neat retort, which made the Marquise smile, gave the Prefet of la Charente a nervous chill. "You may tell her," Lucien went on, "that I now bear gules, a bull raging argent on a ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... of the water and place them in a retort connected with a Liebig's condenser. Add a drop or two of a solution of carbonate of soda and distil over 100 c.c.; collect another 50 c.c. separately. Determine the ammonia in the distillate colorimetrically (with Nessler's ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer

... to ascertain the value of gas as a fuel in comparison with coal in generating steam, using a retort or boiler of 42 inches diameter, 10 feet long, with 4 inch tubes. It was first fired with selected Youghiogheny coal, broken to about 4 inch cubes, and the furnace was charged in a manner to obtain the best results possible with the stack ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various

... artist is compounded of almost every man except the orator. Yet Shakespeare and Scott are certainly alike in this, that they could both, if literature had failed, have earned a living as professional demagogues. The feudal heroes in the "Waverley Novels" retort upon each other with a passionate dignity, haughty and yet singularly human, which can hardly be paralleled in political eloquence except in "Julius Caesar." With a certain fiery impartiality which stirs the blood, Scott distributes ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... to utter a sharp retort, but the words failed to issue. Young Mrs. Fox suddenly stooped over and peered intently at several heretofore unnoticed holes at one end of the black box. These holes, about an inch in diameter, formed a horizontal row. Much to Mr. Crow's alarm, the young ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... The retort silenced Matthew if it did not convince him. That dinner was a very dismal meal. The only cheerful thing about it was Jerry Buote, the hired boy, and Marilla resented his cheerfulness as a ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... newspaper, one wife and one country, and the way to do that is to get out in the open and fight. If I've got as much sense as a rabbit I say that Ab Handy is the man, and whether I'm right or wrong I'm going to run him." He seemed to retort to some objector: "Yes, and the first thing you know he'd come charging up to the Speaker's desk with a maximum freight-rate bill, or a stock-yards bill—and where would I be? I tell you he won't stand hitched. He'll swell up like a pizened pup, and you couldn't handle him. Where'd any of ...
— In Our Town • William Allen White

... unfortunate, Lord Frederick had been the object of it: she had waited by his side, and, with every good purpose, had preached patience to him, while he was smarting under the pain, but more under the shame, of his chastisement. At first, his fury threatened a retort upon the servants around him (and who refused his entrance into the house) of the punishment he had received. But, in the certainty of an amende honorable, which must hereafter be made, he overcame the many temptations which the moment offered, and re-mounting his horse ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald

... twenty-four hours? The latter was not unlikely; I knew her whims and her faults by this time. In either case, I had come to feel decidedly uncomfortable, so much so, in fact, that I was content to let the innuendo pass without a retort. It behooved me to keep my temper as well as ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon

... She made some jesting retort, but there was a shade of earnestness mixed with her playfulness, for to her future husband she only wished to show the amiable side of her character; but all the time she was thinking. Will Norbert see ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau

... which must be inestimable; and, if I understood the process, would set about it immediately." The player assured him the process was very simple—that he must cram a hundred-weight of dry tinder into a glass retort, and, distilling it by the force of animal heat, it would yield half a scruple of insipid water, one drop of which is a full dose. "Upon my integrity!" exclaimed the incredulous doctor, "this is very amazing and extraordinary! that a caput mortuum should yield any water at all. I ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... to them at least," was her equivocal retort. "Has your Highness any preference as to my residence during ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney

... for when Mr. Snarling comes and says to you something uncomplimentary of yourself or your near relations, instead of your doing what you ought to do, and pitying poor Snarling, and recommending him some wholesome medicine, you are strongly tempted to retort in kind: and thus you sink yourself to Snarling's level, and you carry on the row. Your proper course is either to speak kindly to poor Snarling, or not to speak to him at all. There is something unsound about the man whom you never heard say a good word of any mortal, but whom you ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd

... beauties and virtues of the herb mandragora, which, as every one knows, is of both sexes. He had many recipes. He cured burns with the salamander wool, of which, according to Pliny, Nero had a napkin. Ursus possessed a retort and a flask; he effected transmutations; he sold panaceas. It was said of him that he had once been for a short time in Bedlam; they had done him the honour to take him for a madman, but had set him free on discovering that he was only a poet. This story was probably ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... to be supposed, withal, that Angelo has been wont to set himself up as an example of ghostly rectitude, and to reflect somewhat on the laxity of the Duke's administration. These reproofs the Duke cannot answer without laying himself open to the retort of being touched with jealousy. Then too Angelo is nervously apprehensive of reproach; is ever on the watch, and "making broad his phylacteries," lest malice should spy some holes in his conduct; for such is the meaning of "standing at a guard with envy": whereas "virtue is bold, and goodness ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson

... retort again, but feeling the weight of opinion against her, forbore. And she was glad she had never mentioned the circumstances under which she had made poor ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... people, is sometimes set down by the more critical or, let us say, the more censorious of them, to a sort of childish prepossession—akin to that which makes a not ill-conditioned child fail to discover any uncomeliness in his mother's or a favourite nurse's face. There is no retort to such a proposition as this so proper as the argument not ad hominem, but ab or ex homine. The present writer did not read the Devil till he had reached quite critical years; and though he read Gil Blas ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... tickled at the retort, and not without hope that it might offend his kinswoman into departing; but she contented herself with denouncing all imaginable evils from Dennet's ungoverned condition, with which she was prevented in her beneficence from interfering by the father's foolish fondness. ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... doubtfully, and shifted his position in his chair. "What could I say, if it were discussed?" he made vague retort. "I'm merely one of the Directors. You are our Chairman, but you see he hasn't found it of any use to discuss it with you. There are hard and fast rules about these things. They run their natural course. You are not a business man, ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... perhaps be thought to lay myself open to the rejoinder,—"Neither have you any right to assume that Inspiration will result in Infallibility." But the retort is without real point. I do but assert that, just as every man of honour claims to be believed until he has been convicted of a falsehood,—inspired Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostles have a right to our entire confidence in the scrupulous accuracy ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... merci, the American language shall yet be spoken in the British Isles; I promise you that.' He is one of the few Americans I cannot understand. He has eyes so heavy that he never looks quite awake, and he is as quick as an Italian's blade in retort. He has a large and scholarly intellect, and it is almost impossible to make him serious. You never see him in his chair on the floor of the Senate, although he sometimes drifts across the room with a cigar in the hollow of his hand, ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... vaporizers, which are built as a part of the engine, or are adapted to each different engine, as required to obtain the best results. Most of these vaporizers use the heat and the exhaust gases to vaporize the fuel, but they differ greatly in construction; some are of the retort type, and others are of the float-feed carburetter type. To what extent the lower-grade fuel oils can be used with these vaporizers ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXX, Dec. 1910 • Herbert M. Wilson

... separation from the others, Johnston had been unaware of the manner in which Frank had been tormented, as it was borne so uncomplainingly. But this time Frank's indignant speech, followed so fast by Damase's angry retort, told him plainly that there was need of his interference. He emerged from his corner just at the moment when Damase was ready to strike. One glance at the state of affairs was enough. Damase's back was turned toward him. With a swift spring, that startled the others as if he had fallen through ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley

... to retort, when he was anticipated by a new speaker. It was Quill, the journalist, who has long thin fingers and indigestion. At meals he pecks suspiciously at his plate, and he eats food substitutes. Quill runs a financial supplement, or something of that ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks

... sure of the fact of progress, the atheist comes down on us with the retort that we thereby confess ourselves naive and credulous optimists. As well say that when we express our confidence that the North Western Railway will carry us to Manchester, we thereby imply the belief that Manchester is the Earthly ...
— God and Mr. Wells - A Critical Examination of 'God the Invisible King' • William Archer

... your horse?" asked Klea, with such a solemn tone in her deep voice that for an instant the young guardsman lost his self-possession, and this gave her time to go farther from the horse. But the girl's sharp retort had annoyed the conceited young fellow, and not having time to follow her himself, he called out in a tone of encouragement to a party of mercenaries from Cyprus, whom the frightened girl ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... word bearing on my aim in selection. Much admired modern work seems to me, in its lack of inspiration and its disregard of form, like gravy imitating lava. Its upholders may retort that much of the work which I prefer seems to them, in its lack of inspiration and its comparative finish, like tapioca imitating pearls. Either view—possibly both—may be right. I will only say that with an occasional ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various

... would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require smelling-salts, he would change his tone in ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne

... gratified his own studious inclination by teaching him English. The Minister's enemies said that he won the King's heart by taking private lessons from some obscure Briton, and attributing his extraordinary progress to the skill of his royal master. But Decazes had a more effective retort than witticism. He opened the letters of the Ultra-Royalists and laid them before the King. Louis found that these loyal subjects jested upon his infirmities, called him a dupe in the hands of Jacobins, and grumbled at him for so long delaying the happy hour when Artois should ascend the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... maintained throughout the role of leader and moderator. His manner was gracious and he never lost his sense of dignity. He was capable of sharp retort, but always bore in mind that it was high duty to hold a balance and to seek compromise rather than sharp division. He developed it in a most remarkable way on the platform. His appearances were dramatic. His interventions were arresting. The man of the writing desk developed as one of the ablest ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... case, Frank. Darn wild idiot who ought to be probing the farther reaches of the solar system, got himself a job in a chemical plant in Serene. A synthesizing retort exploded. He was burned pretty bad. Just out of the hospital when I last left. It was on account of a woman that he was on the ...
— The Planet Strappers • Raymond Zinke Gallun

... moment. And he regretted them. He had arrived to regard them as his own by a sort of mystical persuasion. And yet it was a perfectly true cry, when he turned once more on the counsel who was beginning a question with the words "You have had all these immense sums..." with the indignant retort "What have ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... is not like that of the symphony, dry and barren wood: on the contrary, it contains many passages of rare beauty and feeling. There is little of the fairy-like in it. To Wagner's criticism of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream overture, that here we had not fairies but gnats, one might retort that in his own opera we have not fairies but baby elephants at play. But throughout there is a quality almost or quite new in music, a feeling for light, a strange, uncanny light. It is worth noticing this, because it is just this sense of all-pervading light ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... was only 2d., a sum which has been immortalized by Samuel Johnson's famous retort on his tutor: 'Sir, you have sconced me 2d. for non-attendance at a lecture ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells

... for wits, in mockery to Dionysius, as if he were still the tyrant, shook out the folds of his cloak, as he was entering into the room where he was, to show there were no concealed weapons about him, Dionysius, by way of retort, observed, that he would prefer he would do so on leaving the room, as a security that he was carrying nothing off with him. And when Philip of Macedon, at a drinking party, began to speak in banter about the verses and tragedies which his father, Dionysius the elder, had left behind him, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... throat, but said nothing, recollecting by this time that all retort or explanation was lost upon Miss Deborah Coggins. To change the subject she remarked, "How disappointed I was at your not coming last night, my dear Miss Debby—one of the friends I ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... one else," retort I, hastily. "I have told no one—no one at least from whom you could have ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... of distillation, sublimation, filtration, various chemical apparatus, water-baths, sand-baths, cupels of bone-earth, of the use of which he gives a singularly clear description. A chemist reads with interest Djafar's antique method of obtaining nitric acid by distilling in a retort Cyprus vitriol, alum, and saltpetre. He sets forth its corrosive power, and shows how it may be made to dissolve even gold itself, by adding a portion of sal ammoniac. Djafar may thus be considered as having solved the grand alchemical problem of obtaining gold in a potable state. Of course, many ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... that it would be difficult to find anywhere a more shameful exploitation, intellectual and economic, than that which has been practised on the Ulster Orangeman by his feudal masters. Were I to retort the abuse, with which my own creed is daily bespattered, I should describe him further as the only victim of clerical obscurantism to be found in Ireland. Herded behind the unbridged waters of the Boyne, he has been forced to live in a very Tibet of intellectual isolation. Whenever he moved ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... currency; exchange rate; bureau de change. chemistry, alchemy; progress, growth, lapse, flux. passage; transit, transition; transmigration, shifting &c. v.; phase; conjugation; convertibility. crucible, alembic, caldron, retort. convert, pervert, renegade, apostate. V. be converted into; become, get, wax; come to, turn to, turn into, evolve into, develop into; turn out, lapse, shift; run into, fall into, pass into, slide into, glide into, grow into, ripen into, open ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... amaze you to learn that I meant to achieve that much, at any rate," was Elsie's quiet retort as she turned to select a volume from the ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... lower parishes of Louisiana, in whose veins some traces of Spanish, West Indian or French blood runs.[19] The Caucasian will shudder with horror at the idea of including a person of color in the definition, and the person of color will retort with his definition that a Creole is a native of Louisiana, in whose blood runs mixed strains of everything un-American, with the African strain slightly apparent. The true Creole is like the famous gumbo of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various

... the old rancher. He was just in that condition when it would take little to make him quarrel. He was about to rap out an angry retort when a knock came at the partition door. It was Thompson. He had come to say that the troopers had returned, and wanted to see the sergeant. Also to say that Rodgers was with them. Horrocks immediately went out to see them, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... instantly dismayed at what she had done. She had spit out all the actuality of her convictions in spite of every effort not to reply unkindly when he was unfair to her. She could not afford to retort sharply to-day. She must resort to other tactics if she were to win to-day. Besides, the truth was only a half-truth. John did not in his heart wish either of them harm; he was just a blind sort of bossing ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... into the stupid, fatuous countenance above him; he appeared to curb with some difficulty the disposition to retort in kind. Instead, ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke

... very good results, the retort should be of cast iron, and have a removable air-tight cover; but, to keep down expense, we will use an ordinary 2-pound self-opening coffee tin. A short piece of brass pipe is soldered into the lid near one ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams

... it has always seemed to me strange that even experienced women of the world, like Mrs. Milton-Cleave, can be so easily hoodwinked by that vague nonentity, 'The Best Authority.' I am inclined to think that were I a human being I should retort with an expressive motion of the finger and thumb, "Oh, you know it on the best authority, do you? Then that ...
— The Autobiography of a Slander • Edna Lyall

... picturesque head in sad remonstrance at this vulgar, coarse, but latterly frequent retort of insurgent democracy upon indignant aristocracy. ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips

... been strongly tempted to retort: "I wasn't whacked, so sucks!" and to describe that picturesque incident when he smashed the prefects' cane, for his milk was the praise of men. But he had to choose whether, by a little honourable bragging, he should gratify his desire for glory, or by a ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... of them, but since you demand it, I will repeat them just as they fell from her lips," was Mr. Brotherson's bitter retort. "She said, 'You of all men should recognise the unseemliness of these proposals. Had your letters given me any hint of the feelings you have just expressed, you would never have had this opportunity of approaching me.' That was all; but ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green

... to Wordsworth, but wrongly, I believe. I should, of course, exclude from the collection living writers; only the select dead would be requisitioned. They cannot retort. And the entertaining volume would illustrate that curious artistic law—the survival of the unfittest, of which we are only dimly beginning to realise the significance. It is like the immortality of the invalid, now recognised by all men of science. You see it manifested ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... tell Monsieur, that if I was minister, I should receive everybody, because it would be my duty to do so; but, being a private individual, I receive whomsoever I please, and at what hour soever I please!" Disconcerted by the liveliness of the retort, the great seignior did not utter one word in reply. We must even believe that from that moment he resolved not to visit any but ministers, for the plain man of science heard ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago

... his eyes to Flamel and the two men looked at each other. Flamel had turned white and his lips stirred, but he held his temperate note. "If you mean to imply that the job was not a nice one, you lay yourself open to the retort that you proposed it. But for my part I've never seen, I never shall see, any reason ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton

... much to see thirty or forty Indians, dressed up in their finest apparel, come quietly marching into the Mission House, and gravely kiss Mrs Young on her cheek. When I used to rally her over this strange phase of unexpected missionary experience, she would laughingly retort, "O, you need not laugh at me. See that crowd of women out there in the yard, expecting you to go out and kiss them!" It was surprising how much work that day kept me shut in my study; or if that expedient would not ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young

... we must admit that his ability in a cross-examination ranks next to his skill in planning an alibi. There is, in the former, a versatility of talent that keeps him always ready; a happiness of retort, generally disastrous to the wit of the most established cross-examiner; an apparent simplicity, which is quite as impenetrable as the lawyer's assurance; a vis comica, which puts the court in tears; and an originality of sorrow, that ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton

... understand your business, Swift!" was the instant retort. "You pretend to be a navigator, or have men who are, and yet when I give you simple and explicit directions for finding a sunken wreck you can't do it, and you cruise all around looking for it like a dog that has lost the scent! You don't know your business, ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton

... pass over the obvious retort that there is no sufficient parallelism between bodily organs and mechanical inventions to make a denial of design in the one involve in equity a denial of it in the other also, and that therefore the preceding paragraph has no force. A man is not bound ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... stung with a retort, but I stood silent. These Varicks might forget their manners, but I might ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... before your sister came with her husband to see me—to beg me to go with her to Flint House and reason with your brother. To reason with him! He was beyond the futility of argument, the folly of retort. I did not want to go—at first. Then it dawned upon me that a kindly fate offered me a providential chance of securing my safety. No suspicion could fall on me if I ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... was a dispute characterized on the part of the archangel more by act than word. Words are hushed in great encounters. Debate with a pirate, a body-snatcher, would be folly; no arguments, therefore, were wasted, on the top of Nebo, by Michael, over the grave of Moses. "The Lord rebuke thee," was his retort; his heavenly form stopping the way, his baffling right arm hindering the accursed design, were the invincible logic of ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams

... Martius, feeling the sting of the rebuke, bit his under lip to check an angry retort, Ancyrus, the elder, rejoined suavely, trying to pour the oil of his honeyed words on the troubled water of ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... up his son in business he provides him with a pound of rice, meaning that he can sell the result as compost for the kitchen-garden, and with the price buy another meal: hence the saying Khakh-i-pai kahu the soil at the lettuce-root. The Isfahanis retort with the name of a station or halting-place between the two cities where, under presence of making travellers stow away their riding-gear, many a Shirazi had been raped: hence "Zin o takaltu tu bi-bar" carry within saddle and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton

... which is reported to have been sold for its weight in gold: Of that value they were, and so madly luxurious the age, that when they at any time reproach'd their wives for their wanton expensiveness in pearl and other rich trifles, they were wont to retort, and turn the tables upon their husbands. The knot of the timber was the most esteem'd, and is said to be much resembled by the female cypress: We have now, I am almost persuaded, as beautiful planks ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... have cut the same figure as 'a forlorn scullion from a greasy eating-house at Rotterdam, if suddenly called away in vision to act as seneschal to the festival of Belshazzar the King, before a thousand of his lords.' And what, we may retort, would Taylor, or Browne, or De Quincey himself, have done, had one of them been wanted to write down the project of Wood's halfpence in Ireland? He would have resembled a king in his coronation robes compelled to lead a forlorn ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... for the "fearful creatures" whose effigies adorn the staircase of Westminster Hall. Mr. Plunket rose and quietly replied, in his effective, hesitating manner, "I am not responsible for the fearful creatures either in Westminster Hall or in this House," a retort which "brought down the House" and caused it to laugh loud and long. This I chronicled in a drawing ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... retort. "I am willing to pay for it. You may have taken me for a thief, but I rather think you have discovered ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish

... Then she risked her retort. "Your being a distinguished physician has not prevented you from already losing TWO MEMBERS of ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... became so fond of him that he often came to talk with the artist while he was at work, and took delight in seeing him at work and in listening to his conversation. Giotto, who always had a jest ready or some sharp retort, entertained the king with his hand in painting and with his tongue by his pleasant discourse. Thus it once happened that the king told him it was his intention to make him the first man in Naples, to which Giotto replied: "No doubt that is why I am lodged at the Porta Reale to ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari

... your opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this. Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact in time. It never paid in the long ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester

... more than must necessarily exist between two periods of high cultivation. It is the fashion to say that the characteristic of the literature of the last century was shallow clearness, the expression of obvious thoughts in obvious, though highly finished language; it is the fashion to retort upon our own generation that its tendency is to over-thinking and over-expression, a constant search for thoughts which shall not he obvious and words which shall be above the level of received conventionality. Accepting these ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace

... daughters and the neighbors saw only the same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck and Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the imaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort: "What of ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... band that he proposed to maintain order. Drylyn heard his neighbor, a true Californian, whose words were lightest when his purpose was most serious, telling the sheriff that order was certainly Heaven's first law, and an elegant thing anywhere. But the anxious officer made no retort in kind, and only said that irregularities were damaging to the county's good name, and would keep settlers from moving in. So the neighbor turned to Drylyn and asked him when he was intending to wake up, as sleep-walking was considered ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister

... continued: Twelve o'clock at night is a late hour to take up all your points, General; but the audience will have me talk. Miss Anthony gave you, General, a very sarcastic retort to your assertion that every woman ought to be married. (Laughter.) She told you that to marry, it was essential to find some decent man, and that could not be found among the Kansas politicians who had so gallantly forsaken the woman's cause. (Loud laughter.) She said, as society ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... claim that he did; the English that he did not. "The house demolished with bullets" was probably an old trading post, contend the English; but there was no trading post except Radisson's west of Lake Superior at that time, retort the French. By "cows" Radisson meant buffalo, and no buffalo were found as far east as Hudson Bay, say the English; by "cows" Radisson meant caribou and deer, and herds of these frequented the shores of Hudson Bay, answer the French. No river ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

... upon its scutcheon; and the cynic may point to the Irish Union, the destruction of the Danish fleet, the Cyprus Convention, as proofs that we have richly earned the name of "Perfidious Albion." Let us forego the patriotic retort which would fling in Prussia's teeth such incidents as the conquest of Silesia, the partition of Poland, the Ems telegram, the seizure of Kiaochau. But let us, while admitting our shortcomings in the past, nail our colours to the mast and insist that this war shall never degenerate into ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... time the Monroe Doctrine was originally proclaimed, it did unquestionably express a valid national interest of the American democracy. It was the American retort to the policy of the Holy Alliance which sought to erect the counter-revolutionary principles into an international system, and which suppressed, so far as possible, all nationalist or democratic agitation. The Spanish-American ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... eaten raw or roasted; they are best roasted tied up in a piece of bark in the manner in which I have before stated that they cook their fish. If the natives are taunted with eating such a disgusting species of food as these grubs appear to Europeans they invariably retort by accusing us of eating raw oysters, which they ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... "You know I might retort truthfully and say I am not accustomed to have students address me in quite this manner. I'm glad, however, to find that you are sensible enough not to make an amusing show of yourself by imagining ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... not mind my retort a bit, however. He seemed to think it beneath his notice; for, he only said "Thank you, Lorton!" and dropped back behind us again with Bessie Dasher, while Seraphine joined company with little Miss Pimpernell—Min and I being still together ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant not the offence you would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more, since the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion, who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly—tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best of it, moved on, and joined Egerton, and in a few minutes more both left ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of human respect is very largely the task of the middle classes. Whereas the breaking down of such ideals is, in the present posture of society, the avowed or unavowed intention of a considerable portion of laboring men and aristocrats. The scornful retort of the Socialist is at hand: "Of course the middle classes are shrewd enough to practice the virtues that pay." Into this familiar moral bog that there are as many kinds of morality as there are economic conditions of mankind, I do not consent to plunge. I need only say that the so-called ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various

... him scornfully, but, being unprovided with a retort, forbore to reply, and going below again mixed himself a stiff glass of grog, and drank success to ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs

... his antagonist against the cold sides of a retort at last, and with fingers clutched about his throat was beating his head violently against the iron, when by the lantern's gleam he caught one glimpse of the fat, purple face in front of him, and loosed his hold with a startled exclamation. Released from the grip that ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach

... instant he intimates that her father is a traitor, and she another as his daughter, she springs to her feet, and in an attitude of intense defiance, but without a motion of her folded arms, flings back her scornful retort: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... so tightly that they turned white to keep back the impatient retort that rose momentarily to her lips. The insolence of some customers was always trying to the sensitive, high-spirited girl, but today it seemed unbearable. Her head throbbed fiercely with the pain of the ever-increasing ache, and—what was the lady on her ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... his son, and after having passed a great part of his life in denouncing sacerdotalism, finding his whole future career chalked out, without himself being consulted, by a priest who was so polite, sensible, and so truly friendly, that his manner seemed to deprive its victims of every faculty of retort or repartee. Still he was going to say something when the door opened, and Mrs. Penruddock appeared, exclaiming in a cheerful voice, "I thought I should find you here. I would not have troubled your Grace, but this letter marked 'private, immediate, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli

... though expecting some fiery retort, Hamilton was unprepared for the transformation in the lad. A moment before he had been a stooped childish figure with an old and weary face, carrying trays of hot glass from furnace to bench and bench to furnace, but at the word he turned. The air of weariness ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... Tetchen. "That would be the best thing." Even this did not bring forth an angry retort from Madame Staubach. About an hour after that Peter came in. He had already heard that the bird had flown. Some messenger from Jacob Heisse's house had brought him ...
— Linda Tressel • Anthony Trollope

... appropriate to myself, as my reward for a certain amount of labor bestowed on the investigation of a very important question of evidence, and a statement of my own practical conclusions. I take no offence, and attempt no retort. No man makes a quarrel with me over the counterpane that covers a mother, with her new-born infant at her breast. There is no epithet in the vocabulary of slight and sarcasm that can reach my personal sensibilities in such a controversy. Only just so far as a disrespectful phrase ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... these scenes? With whom has the wit to deal? First of all, with his interlocutors themselves, when his witticism is a direct retort to one of them. Often with an absent person whom he supposes to have spoken and to whom he is replying. Still oftener, with the whole world,—in the ordinary meaning of the term,—which he takes to task, twisting a current idea into a paradox, or making ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... same debate, that he produced that happy retort upon Mr. Pitt, which, for good-humored point and seasonableness, has seldom, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... man, and outrage every sense of decency in foul language addressed to the negro woman; but if one of the helpless creatures, goaded to resistance and crazed under tyranny, should answer back with impudence, or should relieve his mind with an oath, or retort indecency upon indecency, he did so at the cost to himself of one dollar for every outburst. The agent referred to in the statute was the well-known overseer of the cotton region, who was always coarse and often brutal, sure to be profane, ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... a connection between the proposed substitutes for religion and the special training of their several authors. Historians tender us the worship of Humanity, professors of physical science tender us Cosmic Emotion. Theism might almost retort the apologue of ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith

... retort, and striding over to a nail in the wall, took off his coat and hung it up. Somehow, he looked larger than ever in his gray sweater. A sense of comfort and unaccustomed well-being restored him to good humor. Throwing himself into the rocker, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett

... one of the others mentioned the scandal at St. Petersburg, the flavor of the Earl's retort, as its cooing tones remain ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... Grayskin made no retort, but with a leap he was out on the marsh, and happy when he felt how the clods rocked under him. He dashed across the marsh, and came back again to Karr, without ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof

... young Wetherby, unless you want it punched!" was Dennis's angry retort, but his fellow subaltern only ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry

... from every one in the room. Pao-ch'ai, however, was present at the time so Lin Tai-y did not retort, but went and ensconced herself in a seat near ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... General Buell against what I believed to be most unjust charges. On one occasion a correspondent put in my mouth the very charge I had so often refuted—of disloyalty. This brought from General Buell a very severe retort, which I saw in the New York World some time before I received the letter itself. I could very well understand his grievance at seeing untrue and disgraceful charges apparently sustained by an officer who, at ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant

... and the new steward observing him came to the side, and holding aloft an old pantry-cloth between his finger and thumb until he had attracted his attention, dropped it overboard with every circumstance of exaggerated horror. By the time a suitable retort had occurred to the ex-steward the steamer was half a mile distant, and the extraordinary and unnatural pantomime in which he indulged on the edge of the quay was grievously misinterpreted by a nervous ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... persevere in the opinion, that the manhood of Christ was created, or existed without creation, of a divine and incorruptible substance. Their adversaries reproach them with the adoration of a phantom; and they retort the accusation, by deriding or execrating the blasphemy of the Jacobites, who impute to the Godhead the vile infirmities of the flesh, even the natural effects of nutrition and digestion. The religion of Armenia ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... one were to glory in scrofula or rickets; those unpleasant little anthropoids with the sexless little muse and the dirty little Eros, who would ride their angry, jealous little tilt at him in the vain hope of provoking some retort which would have lifted them up to glory! Where are they now? He has improved them all away! Who ever hears of ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... constituents that they renominated him for the succeeding term. In the canvass which followed he distinguished himself as a stump-speaker; showing, by his tact and ability, by the skill and ingenuity with which he met his opponents in debate, by his shrewdness in attack and readiness in retort, how much he had profited by the training of ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... Of course. Antonio maliciously gives the word its literal meaning, clear, in his retort, ...
— Ms vale maa que fuerza • Manuel Tamayo y Baus

... we found ourselves looking down on the valley and Dr. Schermerhorn's camp. The steam from the volcanic blowholes swayed below us. Through its rifts we saw the tops of the buildings. Presently we made out Percy Darrow, dressed in overalls, his sleeves rolled back, and carrying a retort. He walked, very preoccupied, to one of the miniature craters, where he knelt and went through some operation indistinguishable at the distance. I looked around to see my companions staring at him fascinated, their necks craned out, their bodies drawn back into hiding. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... girl thought him no less vivacious than modest, and no more modest than brave, since he seemed even to prefer the cold to the cheerful warmth of the hearth. The Beau-man attempted to talk; but the Muck-man had always a retort at which the whole company laughed, until the poor fellow ran out of the lodge in a fury of shame and rage. As he rose he saw the Muck-man rise, with the assent of all, and cross over to the bridegroom's seat beside Mamondago-kwa, ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... about to retort angrily and walk away, but his curiosity got the better of him, for just then the boy in the flannels exclaimed in a ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn

... merchant after his first voyage to an English sea-port. From an exclusive association together they had formed a kind of slang peculiar to themselves; and from the constant exercise of wit with the squatters on shore, and crews of other boats, they acquired a quickness and smartness of vulgar retort that was quite amusing. The frequent battles they were engaged in with the boatmen of different parts of the river, and with the less civilised inhabitants of the lower Ohio and Mississippi, invested them with that ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... rule is, that words used in retort, although more violent and disrespectful than those first used, will not satisfy,—words being ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson

... Moreover we dread the assault of the hypercritical reader, who will infallibly object that it is not "the consumption of food," but the resulting mental effect which is the "intellectual treat." As if we did not know that! "But," we would retort with scorn, "can any cause be separated from its effect without bringing about, so to speak, the condition ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne

... air of tolerance; he changed his style of play. The contempt in his retort could not have been more measured, even had it been other than a ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans

... A retort from Leonard was welcome in Ethel's ears, and she quite developed his conversational powers, in an argument on the sagacity of all canine varieties. It was too late to send the little animal home; and he fondled and played ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Americans find leisure, of late years, to travel and take notes, as well as their transatlantic brethren; and, in return for the polite attentions of our travellers, describe England and Englishmen in the bitter language of recrimination and retort; and thus the enmity between the mother and daughter is kept alive and perpetuated. A publication of this kind fell lately into my hands, entitled, "The Glory and Shame of England." The writer, said to be a Christian minister, with the malignity of baser minds, sinks and ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean



Words linked to "Retort" :   respond, reply, back talk, backtalk, response, rejoinder, vessel, still, repay, riposte, mouth, lip, counter, sass, comeback, sassing, replication, come back



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