rejoinder

From Middle French rejoindre, with infinitive used as noun frequent in Law French.

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• (US): IPA^(key): /ɹɪd͡ʒˈɔ͡ɪndɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɔɪndə(ɹ)

rejoinder (plural rejoinders)

1. (law) The defendant's answer to the replication.
2. A response that answers another response.
3. A quick response that involves disagreement or is witty, especially an answer to a question.
   • 2019 May 12, Alex McLevy, “Westeros faces a disastrous final battle on the penultimate Game of Thrones (newbies)”, in The A.V. Club‎:

     The simplest rejoinder to all of Daenerys’ justifications is that this bloodshed could have been avoided. She was given a moment to choose, and she chose blind vengeance, the kind that eliminates any benevolence she hoped to bring to the seven kingdoms by burning it right out of the minds of anyone who saw her astride Drogon, mowing down men, women, and children with abandon.

   • 1919, W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence, chapter 38

     "I'm starting to-morrow. This is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet."

     I made an appropriate rejoinder, and he smiled wanly.

4. (US patent law) Re-insertion, typically after allowance of a patent application, of patent claims that had been withdrawn from examination under a restriction requirement.

• (quick response): comeback, retort

rejoinder (third-person singular simple present rejoinders, present participle rejoindering, simple past and past participle rejoindered)

1. (intransitive) To issue a rejoinder.
2. (transitive) To say as a rejoinder.