Definition of "strike back"
strike back
verb
third-person singular simple present strikes back, present participle striking back, simple past struck back, past participle struck back or stricken back
(intransitive) To respond to an attack by attacking one's opponent or opponents.
Quotations
When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.
1847 October 16, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter VI, in Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. […], volume I, London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], page 101
The she-wolf was angry. She sank her fangs into her mate’s shoulder in reproof; and he, frightened, unaware of what constituted this new onslaught, struck back ferociously and in still greater fright, ripping down the side of the she-wolf’s muzzle.
1906 May–October, Jack London, chapter 1, in White Fang, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, part 2 (Born of the Wild), pages 61-62
As crude a weapon as the cave man’s club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life—a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways.
1962, Rachel Carson, chapter 17, in Silent Spring, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 297
(intransitive) To leave or set out (in a particular direction, often to where one has been).
Quotations
The next day the starboard watch, to which we both belonged, was to be sent ashore on liberty; and availing ourselves of this opportunity, we determined, as soon after the landing as possible, to separate ourselves from the rest of the men without exciting their suspicions, and strike back at once for the mountains.
1846, Herman Melville, chapter 5, in Typee, New York: Wiley and Putnam, page 40
When we left camp before sunrise, heading on a beeline for the most northerly gully, I drove eagerly, with the kind of shining hope that early morning starts can generate. But eight hours later, when we struck back toward camp across the open plain, I found myself sagging in the driver’s seat.
1973, Colin Fletcher, “Discovery”, in The Winds of Mara, New York: Knopf, page 295
(transitive, obsolete) To send (light, heat, a substance) in the direction of its source.
Quotations
[…] the lowest [region of the air] beinge next the earth and the waters, is temperat, and by repercussion or striking back of the sunne beames waxeth hoate, and by absence of them is made colde, being subiect to Wynter and Sommer.
1563, William Fulke, A Goodly Gallerye with a Most Pleasaunt Prospect, into the Garden of Naturall Contemplation, London: William Griffith, Book 1