Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Third-person singular simple present indicative form of countervail.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Some (including me) like to use she as the default instead of he (on the idea that it countervails against the tendency of treating masculinity as the default, while also calling attention to it).

    Grammatical Investigations: she, he, ze, and they 2008

  • Is the Note suggesting that Purposivists which it countervails against Textualists would reach any other result?

    The Volokh Conspiracy » Justice Alito’s Use of Legislative History: 2007

  • The pious and the powerful find little need, however, to willfully distort scientific knowledge when society as a whole joins them in ignoring information that countervails not only religious and political aims, but individual material desires as well.

    Doctoring Science 2007

  • The pious and the powerful find little need, however, to willfully distort scientific knowledge when society as a whole joins them in ignoring information that countervails not only religious and political aims, but individual material desires as well.

    Science 101 2007

  • So that a few times hitting or presence countervails ofttimes failing or absence, as was well answered by Diagoras to him that showed him in

    The Advancement of Learning 2003

  • We affirm there can be unnumber’d Supremes, and that one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another—and that men can be good or grand only of the consciousness of their supremacy within them.

    Preface to “Leaves of Grass,” 1855 1914

  • No merit quite countervails the want of this, whilst this sometimes stands in lieu of all.

    VI. English Traits. Manners 1909

  • Prejudices of this kind, sir, are often so powerful an to persuade us that whatever countervails them is the extremity of folly and that the peculiar path of wisdom is that which leads to their gratification.

    For the Relief of Slaves 1906

  • There can be any number of Supremes—One does not countervail another, any more than one eyesight countervails another, or one life countervails another.

    As I Sat Alone by Blue Ontario’s Shores 1900

  • We affirm there can be unnumber’d Supremes, and that one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight countervails another—and that men can be good or grand only of the consciousness of their supremacy within them.

    Preface, 1855, to First Issue of “Leaves of Grass,” Brooklyn, N.Y.. Collect 1892

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