What does requite mean?
Requite is a formal verb meaning to repay or return something received from another person. It is often used for acknowledging a favour, gift, or kindness, as in requiting a generous benefactor, but it can also mean to retaliate against someone who has caused an injury or wrong. The word has a distinctly literary and elevated tone, making it more suited to formal writing, historical language, or deliberate stylistic effect than to everyday conversation. Its importance lies in its ability to describe reciprocity in a broader and more consequential sense than simpler words such as repay or answer. Depending on context, requiting may express gratitude and balance, compensation for harm, or vengeance and retaliation. It is most clearly distinguished from require, which means to demand or need, and from recite, which means to repeat a text from memory.
verbTo repay or return a favour, benefit, injury, or other deed received from someone. It is formal and can be used positively or negatively, especially in the sense of retaliating against wrongdoing.
- To repay someone for a favour, gift, or kindness received.
- To retaliate against someone for a wrong or injury.
- To return something received, such as a courtesy or benefit.
"She never forgot the help he had given her, and years later she found a way to requite his kindness."
"The company offered to requite the damage it had caused by covering the repair costs."
"He was determined to requite his enemies for the humiliation they had caused him."
Requite is a formal way of saying “pay back,” but its most striking use is for returning an injury as well as a kindness.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does requite come from?
Requite entered Middle English through Old French requiter, a verb meaning to repay or retaliate. The word was formed with the prefix re-, indicating return or repayment, and a root related to quitting or releasing a debt. Its development reflects the long-standing English distinction between settling an obligation and retaliating against a wrong, and the modern verb remains most characteristic of formal or literary usage.
Related word forms
How requite is actually used
Requite is formal and literary in modern English. It can carry a neutral sense of exchanging a favour or a more specifically negative sense of avenging a wrong; the context determines which meaning is intended.
Easily confused with requite
Requite means to repay or retaliate, whereas require means to demand or need something.
Requite means to return a favour or injury, whereas recite means to speak or repeat a poem or other text from memory.