countervail
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Anglo-Norman countrevaloir ( = Old French contrevaloir), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin contrā valēre (“to be worth against”).
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 360: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. 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.
- Template:RQ:Florio Montaigne Essayes
- c. 1700, Roger L'Estrange, Seneca's Morals:
- countervail a very confiderable Advantage to all Men of Letters
- 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.
Translations
to counteract, counterbalance or neutralize
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to compensate for
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