Other forms: retorted, retorts, retorting
To retort is to reply sharply and at once. The answer that comes straight back, with an edge on it.
Speed and sharpness are both essential, since a retort is not merely a reply but a comeback. It is one of the standard verbs of fiction dialogue, alongside snapped and countered. As a noun a retort is the reply itself, and a sharp retort is close to a fixed phrase. There is a completely unrelated laboratory sense, since a retort is also a glass vessel with a long bent neck used for distilling.
A retort twists the words back. Latin retorqueō meant to twist back, so the sharp reply returns the remark to whoever sent it.
Proto-Indo-European
*terkʷ-
Latin
retortus
Middle English
retorte
English, today
retort
Built from
From Middle English retorte, from Latin retortus, from retorqueo (“to be forced to twist back”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Ways of Speaking
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word