different between comeuppance vs justdesserts

English

Alternative forms

• come-uppance
• comeupance

Etymology

From come up (“to appear before a judge”) +? -ance.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?m??p?ns/

Noun

comeuppance (usually uncountable, plural comeuppances)

1. Retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.
   • 1883, Albion Winegar Tourgée, ed., The Continent; an illustrated weekly magazine, v 3.

     So when Brown's second wife turned out a reg'lar ternygrunt, I wa'n't in no wise upset, for he needed a comeuppance, an' he got it in her.

   • 1958, “Yankee Comeuppance in a Lousy Inning”, in Life, v 45, n 15 (October 13), p 34.

     The Yankees got their comeuppance in Milwaukee when the Braves piled up a record score for the first inning of a World Series game.

   • 2004, Peter Hunt, Sheila G. Bannister Ray, eds., International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, p 862.

     […] in the anonymous A New Gift for Children (1750), perhaps America's first secular storybook, and its tales of children who are good and merit rewards, and tales of children who are otherwise and receive their comeuppances.

Synonyms

• (outcome that is justly deserved): just deserts

Translations

See also

• serve someone right

References

• comeuppance at OneLook Dictionary Search