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Retribution vs Restitute - What's the difference?

retribution | restitute |

As nouns the difference between retribution and restitute

is that retribution is punishment inflicted in the spirit of moral outrage or personal vengeance while restitute is that which is restored or offered in place of something; a substitute.

As a verb restitute is

to restore (something) to its former condition.

retribution

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Punishment inflicted in the spirit of moral outrage or personal vengeance.
  • *1983 , Richard A. Posner, The economics of justice m p.208:
  • *:Whereas retribution focuses on the offender's wrong, retaliation focuses on the impulse of the victim (or of those who sympathize with him) to strike back at the offender.
  • * 1999 , , Medieval crime and social control , p.73:
  • *:1. Revenge is for an injury; retribution is for a wrong.
  • *:2. Retribution sets an internal limit to the amount of the punishment according to the seriousness of the wrong; revenge need not.
  • *:3. Revenge is personal; the agent of retribution need have no special or personal tie to the victim of the wrong for which he exacts retribution.
  • *:4. Revenge involves a particular emotional tone, pleasure in the suffering of another, while retribution need involve no emotional tone.

    • Synonyms

    * See also

    Hypernyms

    * punishment

    Derived terms

    * retributionist * retributive

    restitute

    English

    Verb

    (restitut)
  • To restore (something) to its former condition.
  • To provide recompense for (something).
  • * 1922 , , Ulysses , episode 17:
    • . . . when Frederick M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and restituted the copy of the current issue of the Freeman's Journal and National Press which he had been about to throw away (subsequently thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of the Turkish and Warm Baths. . . .
  • * 1966 , , Incest (1993 edition), ISBN 9780156443005, p. 28:
    • What I spill in talk or acts rarely is restituted in writing.
  • * 1980 , , Wallace Stevens: The Poems of Our Climate , ISBN 9780801491856, p. 266:
    • [W]hat it represents is the inability of language to restitute the loss of memory.
  • To refund.
  • * 2004 , , Private Sector , ISBN 9780446613934, p. 31:
    • We were even ordered to restitute the legal costs of the defendants.

    Related terms

    * restitution

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • That which is restored or offered in place of something; a substitute.
    • ----