Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To cancel or reverse (a previously issued command or order).
- v. To recall by a contrary order: countermanded the air strikes.
- n. An order or command reversing another one.
- n. Cancellation of an order or command.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To revoke (a command or an order); order or direct in opposition to (an order before given), thereby annulling it and forbidding its execution.
- To oppose by contrary orders or action; contradict the orders of.
- To prohibit; forbid.
- n. A contrary order; a revocation of a former order, command, or notice.
Wiktionary
- v. To revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given.
- v. To recall a person or unit with such an order.
- n. An order to the contrary of a previous one
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given.
- v. obsolete To prohibit; to forbid.
- v. To oppose; to revoke the command of.
- n. A contrary order; revocation of a former order or command.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a contrary command cancelling or reversing a previous command
- v. cancel officially
Etymologies
- From Old French contremander, from mediaeval Latin contramandare, from contra- + mandare ‘command’. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English countremaunden, from Old French contremander : contre-, counter- + mander, to command (from Latin mandāre; see man-2 in Indo-European roots). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Those were the British orders, and the Japanese had no reason to countermand them on her say-so.”
“The Army had barred Donovan from going in with any of its contingents, no way a Navy admiral would countermand orders from a sister service and take a stowaway, Stark told him.”
“With Proposition 23, two out-of-state oil corporations, Valero and Tesoro, and right-wing oil billionaires based in New York and Kansas are trying to use the California initiative process, originally intended to allow citizen intervention in the governance of this state, to countermand AB 32 and set policy for us.”
The Huffington Post: Rebecca Solnit: Jurassic Ballot: When Corporations Ruled the Earthrop 23
“We are unable to countermand or override the process.”
Simon & Schuster: Star Trek: Typhon Pact Paths of Disharmony
“The Assembly had suffered a pang of conscience over their murder decree, so they ordered Cleon to countermand it.”
“No insurance company should have the power to countermand a doctor.”
“Episode V: Tyler begins forcing bureaucrats out of work, only to have Tyrone, his identical but evil twin, show up and countermand all of the orders on the basis that the regulations were mostly okay and some were even less onerous than "what might have been".”
“Going forward, the automaker has committed to equip all Toyota vehicles for North America with Smart Stop, a brake-throttle override that would allow drivers to intuitively countermand runaway acceleration by simply pressing the brake pedal.”
Consumer Reports: Toyota updates on recall campaign, safety initiatives for 2011
“Fellow poets and critics write of her "oppositional temperament" (Steve Burt), of an impulse "to countermand, rather than to express" (Dan Chiasson).”
The Huffington Post: Christopher Lydon: Pulitzer Poet Rae Armantrout (AUDIO)
“In a 2000 book review, also published in the Wall Street Journal, Webb wrote that affirmative action "has within one generation brought about a permeating state-sponsored racism that is as odious as the Jim Crow laws it sought to countermand.”
The Washington Post: Va. Sen. Webb restates opposition to some affirmative action programs in op-ed
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘countermand’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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My Strange Kitchen
It seems that whenever I look away, new gadgets and devices and tools and dishes and utensils and ingredients are multiplying in my kitchen drawers and my cabinets.
tectonic plates, spoonbill, fork in the road, bowl haircut, whisk away, greasy spoon, melting pot, pan flute, platelets, spooning, pitchfork, jackknife and 101 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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phrontistery - c
from phrontistery.info
caballine, cabas, cable, caboched, cabochon, caboose, cabotage, cabré, cabrie, cabriole, cabriolet, cacaesthesia and 1298 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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work these into conversation
Challenge!
legerdemain, polysemic, rupestrian, callipygian, oscitancy, numen, lucubration, asperity, amalgam, apposite, wastrel, eleemosynary and 208 more...
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MiaLuthien's list ♥
gambit, prehensile, coquetry, impunity, genuflect, ensconce, clavicle, delude, beget, castigate, life caching, convoluted and 478 more...
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Good for Academics
Gahh!! Study!
supplant, usurp, finagle, winnow, draconian, abut, collude, swindle, objectify, incite, decadent, obstinate and 327 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Miscellany, pt. c
chokedamp, clitter, circumbendibus, catmint, cacoëpy, co-feoffee, caribou, conturbation, chalicothere, calamus, cochineal, cincture and 168 more...
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GRE
acrimony, verisimilitude, tenebrious, tenebrous, dishabille, unfettered, deplorable, woebegone, credulity, naïveté, mitigate, meliorate and 475 more...
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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5-0
Hecko, words! I’m so happy I’ve found you. I want to keep you all and never want to lose you again. I hope you like it here.
amscray, thistledown, tine, tinsel, pungent, snarl, wail, lanky, viscid, dawdle, luminous, stow and 2719 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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ari
words
craven, perennial, incumbent, infraction, truancy, foreboding, missgiving, understudy, upkeep, withdrawal, retreat, underscore and 95 more...
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vocab
numinous, gloze, diffident, soporific, lissome, rebarbative, trope, deliquesce, abjure, obdurate, pugilistic, puerile and 265 more...
Tweets
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