strike back

1. 1.

   make a counterattack and return like for like, especially evil for evil

   “The Empire strikes back”

   “The Giants struck back and won the opener”

   “The Israeli army retaliated for the Hamas bombing”

   Synonymsretaliate

   Broaderstrike

Questions about strike back

What does strike back mean?

strike back means "make a counterattack and return like for like, especially evil for evil".

What is another word for strike back?

Close synonyms include retaliate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is strike back a common word?

strike back is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.