Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- n. Something that serves to check, restrict, or limit something else.
- n. Something that confirms or denies the correctness of a previous check.
- transitive v. To oppose or check by a counteraction.
- transitive v. To check again in order to verify.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- n. A restriction or limit
- n. A second check (in order to confirm or deny a previous one)
- v. To restrict or limit by counteracting
- v. To recheck
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- n. A check; a stop; a rebuke, or censure to check a reprover.
- n. Any force or device designed to restrain another restraining force; a check upon a check.
- transitive v. To oppose or check by some obstacle; to check by a return check.
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To oppose or frustrate by some obstacle; check.
- n. Counteraction of a check; a cheek matching a check.
- n. In pianoforte-making, a projection from the hammer-butt that engages with the check. See cut under pianoforte. Also called bumper.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- n. a blank check provided by a bank for the convenience of customers who are making withdrawals
- v. oppose or check by a counteraction
- v. check a second time
- n. something that checks the correctness of a previous check
- n. a check that restrains another check
Etymologies
Examples
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Also, as we were rowing into a very great sound lying south-west from whence these whales came, upon the sudden there came a violent countercheck of a tide from the south-west against the flood which we came with, not knowing from whence it was maintained.
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Every check and countercheck is used, which slowness of proceeding, or a repetition of it in other stages and under different forms, can effect.
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints January, February, March
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One man, with opinions pretty well ossified on this subject, having been challenged for his statement that Mrs. Browning was born at Hope End, rushed into print in a letter to the “Gazette” with the countercheck quarrelsome to the effect, “You might as well expect throstles to build nests on Fleet Street 'buses, as for folks of genius to be born in a big city.”
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If again, it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the reproof valiant: if again, it was not well cut, he would say, I lie: this is called the countercheck quarrelsome: and so to the lie circumstantial, and the lie direct.
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The first, the retort courteous; the second, the quip modest; the third, the reply churlish; the fourth, the reproof valiant; the fifth, the countercheck quarrelsome; the sixth, the lie with circumstance; the seventh, the lie direct.
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He is forbidden, in fact, to be himself a good citizen; forbidden to be anything more than the colourless instrument of a system of compromise and countercheck.
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Madame Waddington opened the Ouvroir Holophane on the 15th of August, her first object being to give employment and so countercheck the double menace of starvation and haunted idleness for at least fifty poor women: teachers, music-mistresses, seamstresses, lace makers, women of all ages and conditions abruptly thrown out of work.
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But while this game of check and countercheck was being played, the
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So while the South thus early was seeking to frighten the North from the agitation of the slavery question in Congress, Garrison was unconsciously preparing a countercheck by making it dangerous for a Northern man to practice Southern principles in the National Legislature.
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[292] The retort courteous, if not even the countercheck quarrelsome,
A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century
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