How to Use tit for tat in a Sentence

tit for tat

noun phrase
  • Weddings are not tit for tat, everyone is different.
    — Ashlyn Robinette, PEOPLE, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Texas kick-started the tit for tat with new lines giving Republicans an edge last year, prompting other red states to follow suit.
    — Julia Mueller, The Hill, 29 Apr. 2026
  • Transactionalism assumes an exchange, tit for tat.
    — Don Graves, Foreign Affairs, 24 Sep. 2025
  • California’s plan comes after talk of new maps in Texas kicked off a national redistricting tit for tat in the run-up to next year’s high-stakes midterms.
    — Julia Mueller, The Hill, 21 Aug. 2025
  • No other government has gone tit for tat with Washington on tariffs and export restrictions and emerged mostly unscathed.
    — Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Foreign Affairs, 16 Dec. 2025
  • Reciprocity within capitalism and white supremacy is tit for tat.
    — Lorinda Toledo, Los Angeles Times, 15 June 2026
  • That map set off a broader redistricting tit for tat across the country, with Democratic and Republican states alike moving to redraw their congressional lines.
    — Sarah Fortinsky, The Hill, 18 Nov. 2025
  • Catastrophic insurance, not tit for tat What all this research suggests is that friendship is less about the exchange of favors and more about being there for each other when unforeseeable disaster strikes.
    — Athena Aktipis, The Conversation, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Newsom has emerged as a key figure in the ongoing tit for tat between red and blue states over drawing new congressional maps to be more favorable to their respective parties in the upcoming midterm House elections.
    — Elizabeth Crisp, The Hill, 18 Aug. 2025
  • The broader redistricting tit for tat has also prompted a reversal among some Democrats around redistricting commissions, which were created with the intent to distance lawmakers from the process of drawing maps.
    — Saul Elbein, The Hill, 4 Aug. 2025
  • Jeffries has separately been involved in efforts to redistrict in Virginia, Illinois, and beyond — part of a tit for tat with Trump that could determine the balance of power in Washington next year.
    — David Sivak, The Washington Examiner, 18 Feb. 2026
  • The displacement of so many Jews from their ancient home becomes a kind of tit for tat—a balancing act of victimhood against the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees who fled or were expelled during Israel’s war of independence.
    — Adam Louis-Klein, The Atlantic, 18 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tit for tat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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