countervail
English
Etymology
From Anglo-Norman countrevaloir ( = Old French contrevaloir), from Latin contrā valēre (“to be worth against”).
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈkaʊntəveɪl/
Verb
countervail (third-person singular simple present countervails, present participle countervailing, simple past and past participle countervailed)
- (obsolete) To have the same value as.
- To counteract, counterbalance or neutralize.
- To compensate for.
- 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 38, in The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:
- I am one of those who thinke their fruit can no way countervaile this losse.
- L'Estrange
- Upon balancing the account, the profit at last will hardly countervail the inconveniences that go along with it.
- 1988, Richard Ellmann, The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, 2nd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988), p. 539.
- If [Wilfred] Owen preserves his youthful romanticism, or at least a shell of it, he uses it to countervail the horrifying scenes he describes, just as he poses his own youth against the age-old spectacle of men dying in pain and futility.
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Translations
to counteract, counterbalance or neutralize
to compensate for
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