Etymologically
Log in

retort

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the English word retort

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ɹɪˈtɔːt/[1]
  • US: /ɹɪˈtɔɹt/[1]

retort1 sharp reply, to answer back

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1505 Henryson, Testament of Cresseid
Borrowed from
Latin retortus
Ultimate origin
Latin retorqueō

Etymology

The verb to answer back is borrowed from Latin retortus (“turned back”),[2][3][4][5][6] the past participle of retorqueō (“to twist round, turn back, fling back”),[7][2][3][8] which is formed from re- (“back”) and torqueō (“to twist”),[7][6][3] from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to twist”).[6][9] The OED and the Shorter Oxford take it from the participial stem retort-,[7][10] and Etymonline also allows Old French retort.[6] The noun for a sharp reply comes from the English verb.[7][6][10][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To hurl a charge or insult back at its author: about 1505, in Henryson's Testament of Cresseid.[7][3] Dates in other works are later: the 1550s in Etymonline and about 1557 in Barnhart, for returning an injury.[6][2] An adjective retort, turned or bent back, is older, recorded from before 1475 to 1754.[7]

Semantic evolution

The Latin physical image of twisting something back survived in English until about 1800,[7] but from the start the word was mostly used of charges, wrongs and arguments thrown back at their source.[7][2] The step to verbal exchanges came around 1600, when it was applied to jest and sarcasm.[6] From 1597 the verb could take the words spoken as its object, which is its main use today.[7] Barnhart dates the extended senses a little later, "answer in kind" to 1602 and "say in sharp reply" to 1625.[2] The noun is recorded in 1610,[7][3] or in 1600 in Barnhart, who takes it from As You Like It, where Shakespeare has the "retort courteous";[2] the OED dates that play's quotation before 1616, and the phrase was much echoed afterwards.[7] Johnson (1755) defined the noun as "a censure or incivility returned".[11]

Timeline

  • before 1475 – adjective, turned or bent back (obsolete by 1754).[7]
  • c. 1505 – to hurl a charge back at its author.[7][3]
  • c. 1542 – to turn an argument against an opponent.[7]
  • c. 1559 – to cast a wrong back on the person who did it.[7]
  • c. 1567 – to reply in kind to a jest or insult; to pay back a wrong.[7]
  • 1583 – to bend or turn back (obsolete by 1803).[7]
  • 1597 – to say by way of sharp reply.[7]
  • 1610 – noun, a sharp reply.[7][3] Barnhart has it from 1600, in Shakespeare.[2]
  • 1836 – noun, retaliation, as in physical retort.[7]

Meanings

Verb

  1. To answer quickly and sharply, wittily or angrily: “Nobody asked you,” she retorted.[12][3][7]
  2. To turn an argument back against the person who made it.[12][3][7]
  3. To hurl back a charge or insult at its author.[3][7]
  4. (now rare) To pay back an injury or wrong; to retaliate.[3][7]

Noun

  1. A quick, sharp or witty reply, especially one that turns the first speaker's words against them.[12][3][7]
  2. The act of making such replies, often in the phrase in retort.[3][7]
  3. the retort courteous: in allusions to Shakespeare, a politely worded rebuff.[7][3][11]

Word family

  • retorter
  • unretorted

retort2 distilling vessel

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1527 Andrewe's translation of Brunschwig, The Vertuose Boke
Borrowed from
Middle French retorte
Ultimate origin
Latin retorqueō

Etymology

The distilling vessel is borrowed from Middle French retorte,[3][4][5][12][6][2][10][13] from Medieval Latin retorta (“a vessel with a bent neck”),[3][4][5][6][2][8] a noun use of the feminine of Latin retortus (“bent back”), the past participle of retorqueō (“to bend back”);[3][8][10] it was named for its bent shape.[3] The OED, in its 2010 revision, and the American Heritage Dictionary instead take it from German Retorte, itself apparently from the Medieval Latin noun.[7][9] The OED's evidence is that the German form retort is recorded in 1500, in the very source translated in the first English quotation (1527), while the Medieval Latin term dates from the 15th century and the French word only from 1555.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A vessel with a bulb and a long downward-bent neck, used for distilling: 1527, in L. Andrewe's translation of Brunschwig, The Vertuose Boke.[7][3] Other dictionaries date it later: 1550–60 in Dictionary.com,[4] about 1600 in Etymonline,[6] and 1605 in Barnhart.[2]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) described "a chymical glass vessel with a bent neck to which the receiver is fitted".[11] From 1634 it also named larger metal or earthenware vessels for heating materials in metallurgy and manufacture,[7] such as those for making coal gas.[3] A verb followed in 1850, in N. Kingsley's diary, for heating amalgam or similar material in a retort.[7] In 1871 the name passed to the vessel in which canned food is sterilized by heat.[7]

Timeline

  • 1527 – a glass vessel for distilling.[7][3]
  • 1634 – a metal or earthenware vessel for industrial heating.[7]
  • 1850 – verb, to heat in a retort.[7][3]
  • 1871 – a vessel for sterilizing canned food.[7]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A vessel, usually of glass, with a bulb and a long neck bent downward, used in distillation and other chemical work.[3][7][10]
  2. A large metal or clay vessel in which material is heated in metallurgy or manufacturing, as for coal gas.[3][7][10]
  3. A vessel in which canned or packaged food is sterilized by heat; an autoclave.[7][3]

Verb

  1. To heat a substance in a retort, as oil shale or mercury amalgam.[3][7][10]

Word family

  • retort pouch

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  10. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Retort.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/retort. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·