return the favor

verb

Definitions

  1. To do something for someone, or to someone, similar to what they did for you or to you…

    To do something for someone, or to someone, similar to what they did for you or to you (whether good or bad).

    • I did some snow shoveling for him when he was ill, and he was kind enough to return the favor this year. [positive valence]
    • They ignored my request, so I was happy to return the favor when I got the chance. [negative valence produced by sarcasm]

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for return the favor. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA