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requite

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

To repay, recompense, or return in kind, whether good or evil; to reciprocate love, kindness, injury, or harm; to give back what is due or deserved.

Detailed Definition
“Requite” implies moral balance—love requited, wrongs requited. In amorous poetry, it frames reciprocity’s hope or pain. The term’s weight suits ethical reflection. Poets use it to explore justice in relationships, where requital fulfills or betrays, reinforcing themes of fairness, desire, and cosmic order in lyrical and dramatic contexts.
Example
Example in poetry:
“How shall I requite thy boundless grace?” asks the grateful lover; In Shakespeare’s Sonnet 101: “Truth needs no color, with his color fixed; / Beauty no pencil, beauty’s truth to lay; / But best is best, if never intermixed? / Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb? / Excuse not silence so, for’t lies in thee / To make him much outlive a gilded tomb... / And so they love, being loved, requite again”; “Virtue requites not with gold, but with peace”; “He sought to requite betrayal with mercy”; “Love that is true requites itself”; She could not requite his passion, though she honored it.
Additional Notes
“Requite” implies exact reciprocity—love for love, harm for harm—and appears frequently in sonnets and revenge tragedies; its moral weight distinguishes it from neutral “repay,” embedding justice or poetic balance in emotional exchange.
Also Known As
repay reciprocate recompense
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