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Retort vs Repudiate - What's the difference?

retort | repudiate |

As verbs the difference between retort and repudiate

is that retort is to say something sharp or witty in answer to a remark or accusation while repudiate is to reject the truth or validity of something; to deny.

As a noun retort

is a sharp or witty reply, or one which turns an argument against its originator; a comeback.

retort

English

(wikipedia retort)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) retortus, from .

Noun

(en noun)
  • A sharp or witty reply, or one which turns an argument against its originator; a comeback.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To say something sharp or witty in answer to a remark or accusation.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1905, author=
  • , title= , chapter=1 citation , passage=“It is a pity,” he retorted with aggravating meekness, “that they do not use a little common sense. The case resembles that of Columbus' ?egg, and is every bit as simple. […]”}}
  • To make a remark which reverses an argument upon its originator; to return, as an argument, accusation, censure, or incivility.
  • to retort the charge of vanity
  • * Milton
  • And with retorted scorn his back he turned.
  • To bend or curve back.
  • a retorted line
  • * Southey
  • With retorted head, pruned themselves as they floated.
  • To throw back; to reverberate; to reflect.
  • * Shakespeare
  • As when his virtues, shining upon others, / Heat them and they retort that heat again / To the first giver.
    Synonyms
    * (sharp reply) comeback, rejoinder, back answer

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) retorte.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (chemistry) A flask with a rounded base and a long neck that is bent down and tapered, used to heat a liquid for distillation.
  • :* 1893', A large curved ' retort was boiling furiously in the bluish flame of a Bunsen burner, and the distilled drops were condensing into a two-litre measure. — Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘The Naval Treaty’ (Norton 2005, p.670)
  • A container in which material is subjected to high temperatures]] as part of an industrial manufacturing process, especially during the smelting and [[forge, forging of metal.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To heat in a retort.
  • repudiate

    English

    Verb

  • To reject the truth or validity of something; to deny.
  • To refuse to have anything to do with; to disown.
  • To refuse to pay or honor (a debt).
  • To be repudiated.
  • Quotations

    : "Chaucer . . . not only came to doubt the worth of his extraordinary body of work, but repudiated it" : "If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America." 1848': '... she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue, '''repudiating Mrs. Rawdon Crawley altogether...' — William Makepeace Thackeray, '' , Chapter XXXIV. "The seventeenth century sometimes seems for more than a moment to gather up and to digest into its art all the experience of the human mind which (from the same point of view) the later centuries seem to have been partly engaged in repudiating ." , Andrew Marvell . "The fierce willingness to repudiate domination in a holistic manner is the starting point for progressive cultural revolution." --