Definition of "comeuppance"
comeuppance
noun
usually uncountable, plural comeuppances
Retribution or outcome that is justly deserved.
Quotations
The Sunday edition of the principal morning paper even expressed some bitterness under the heading, "Gilded Youths of the Fin-de-Siecle"--this was considered the knowing phrase of the time, especially for Sunday supplements--and there is no doubt that from certain references in this bit of writing some people drew the conclusion that Mr. George Amberson Minafer had not yet got his comeuppance, a postponement still irritating.
1918, Booth Tarkington, chapter 10, in The Magnificent Ambersons
I have to say it again, my Dearest Friend. What a wonderful Comedown for the Godhead! What a wonderful Comeuppance for Humankind! That’s because You, Lord God, Creator, Bellows Maker of All That Breathes, deigned to come to my hovel of a soul; once there, to fatten up the leanness of my soul with the plumpitude of Your Sacrament; that’s to say, with the plenitude of Your Divinity and Humanity.
2000, Thomas à Kempis, “[The Sacrament of the Altar: How to Prepare for It & What It Tastes Like] Frequency”, in William Griffin, transl., The Imitation of Christ: How Jesus Wants Us to Live […] A Contemporary Version, HarperSanFrancisco, page 238
[…] 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.
2004, Peter Hunt, Sheila G. Bannister Ray, editors, International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature, page 862
[I]ts main character, Henry (Mr. [Ewan] McGregor), is a successful, intellectual dramatist who seems quite capable of churning out fizzy, challenging works about brilliant but ambivalent revolutionaries, philosophers, etc. […] But this cleverer-than-thou creature gets his comeuppance in "The Real Thing," showing that a very human heart – just like those possessed by the less sesquipedalian – beats beneath his fancy words.
2014 October 30, Ben Brantley, “When the head leads the heart: 'The Real Thing,' With Ewan McGregor and Maggie Gyllenhaal, opens on Broadway ”, in The New York Times