retort1
/rɪˈtɔːt
/- It takes every ounce of self-control that I have to not retort back with a scathing remark about what a fool she is.
- When he had pulled out of a film, it was said that he was a victim of stress, but he refuted those claims, retorting that he simply hadn't wanted to do a movie at that point.
- Patient and genial, Ms. Sandhya took the children into confidence from the very start, retorting with jokes, poetry and the occasional repartee to drive home a point.
Synonyms
- This enraged his domestics, who retorted the insult by blows.
- Pipes, though a little disconcerted, far from being disabled by the blow, in a trice retorted the compliment with his truncheon.
- When confronted about Fischer's comments in interviews, Amis retorted with some insults of his own.
- He was relentless on verbal observations about her body, and she had begun to pick up the habit of grinding her teeth in order to save her from retorting an obscenity back at him.
- It is human nature that if you are insulted by someone, you will retort the insult.
- Japanese historian Kajimura Hideki, who passed away in 1989, retorted the argument that Dokdo belongs to Japan by suggesting diverse historical articles in his paper released on the Review of Korean Studies.
- Andra had to literally bite her tongue to hold back the sharp retort quickly forming there.
- Cordelia rolled her eyes, but was too tired to give a scathing retort.
- Well, for once in my life, I didn't have a clever retort.
Synonyms
Origin
Late 15th century (in the sense 'hurl back an accusation or insult'): from Latin retort- 'twisted back, cast back', from the verb retorquere, from re- 'in return' + torquere 'to twist'.
torch from Middle English:
A torch in the original sense of ‘something soaked in an inflammable substance used to give light’ was often made of twisted hemp or other fibres. This is still the American meaning, and reflects the word's Latin origin, torquere ‘to twist’. Only in British English can torch describe a battery-powered electric lamp, which Americans call a flashlight. A torch song is a sad or sentimental song of unrequited love, whose name, used since the 1920s, comes from the phrase carry a torch for, ‘to love someone who does not love you in return’. The image in pass on the torch, ‘to pass on a tradition, especially one of learning or enlightenment’, is that of the runners in a relay race passing on the torch to each other, as was the custom in the ancient Greek Olympic Games. The Latin source of torch, torquere, is found in a large number of other English words. Most obviously it is the source of the engineer's torque (late 19th century), and the twisted Celtic neck-ring the torc (mid 19th century). Less obviously it is in contort (Late Middle English) ‘twist together’; distort (Late Middle English) ‘twist out of shape’; extort (early 16th century) ‘twist out of’; and retort (Late Middle English) ‘to twist back’ (the chemical apparatus gets its name from its twisted shape). Tortura ‘twisting, torment’ the Latin noun formed from the verb gives us torture and tortuous (both LME), and torment (Middle English). Thwart (Middle English) is an Old Norse word that goes back to the same Indo-European root.
retort2
/rɪˈtɔːt/- The smelters will require 25000 tons of charcoal per annum which will be produced in retorts supplied by the Belgium company, Lambiotte.
- In the factory there were a number of iron retorts, and with them several tons of pitch were also distilled.
- Ore has been processed in large retorts in the past, but most recent operations use several types of furnaces.
- Retorts are the most employed of any kind of distilling vessels in the practice of modern chemistry, having in England almost superseded the use of all others.
- The first experiments with the caustic potash purification had been conducted in glass retorts, but they were less successful when scaled up.
- The furnace which was used to retort the ore was previously taken off location so little or no above ground structures were left.
- The in situ process may not require mine workings or large surface plant facilities to crush and retort the shale, and it avoids the necessity of removing overburden and waste shale to dumps with its consequent environmental problems.
Origin
Early 17th century: from French retorte, from medieval Latin retorta, feminine past participle of retorquere 'twist back' (with reference to the long recurved neck of the laboratory container).