Requiter

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. One who responds to a favor, service, or kindness by returning like treatment or recompense
2. An individual who reciprocates an action, whether positive or negative, by rendering a corresponding response or reward
3. A person who gives back or retaliates in kind for a benefit, gesture, or harm received, thus balancing the exchange between parties

Etymology: The agent suffix in "requiter" is one of English's most productive endings, and it arrived by a long route. The "-er" traces back through Middle English and Old French "-ier" to Latin "-arius", a suffix that marked a person connected with or engaged in something, and it was already a common building block in Latin before it entered English. Its ancestors reach deep into the prehistory of the Indo-European languages, but in English the "-er" in "requiter" is simply the same ending found in "baker", "writer" and "reader", attached to a verb. The verb "requite" is the older and more interesting half. It was formed in English from "re-" meaning back or again, combined with "quite", an earlier English word meaning to set free or to discharge a debt. So to requite someone was literally to pay back what was owed, and the "requiter" is the person who settles that account. The word therefore carries the idea of balancing a ledger rather than simply repaying a kindness.

Synonyms: returner, reciprocator, repayer, retaliator, respondent