counterarm

English

Etymology

From counter- +‎ arm.

Verb

counterarm (third-person singular simple present counterarms, present participle counterarming, simple past and past participle counterarmed)

1. To arm oneself in order to match the level of weaponry held by an opponent.
   • 1984, Daily Report: Soviet Union - Volume 84, Issues 10-21, page 202:

     After all, according to the letter of the 1979 NATO decision, the NATO council was supposed to examine first the results of the Soviet-U.S. talks and then to take a decision on whether to counterarm, as they call it in the West, or not to counterarm.

   • 1987, The Expanding Role of the European Community in International Security Issues, page 18:

     The lesson of the last four years is therefore that the zero option would not now be within our grasp if we had not taken the decision to counterarm and restore parity.

   • 2005, Klaus Berndl, National Geographic Visual History of the World, page 588:

     The process of detente suffered repeated setbacks, however, including the NATO decision to counterarm in 1977, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and the West's boycott of the © Olympic Games in the city of- Moscow in 1980.

Noun

counterarm (plural counterarms)

1. A weapon that is acquired in order to counter one held by an opponent.
   • 1917, Flying - Volume 5, page 136:

     The submarine is the dominating weapon today. Undersea boats spell a nameless, historical terror because no effective counterarm has been perfected.

   • 1976, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs, Military Assistance Programs - Volumes 461-484, page 391:

     Of course, we want them in a forum, not a forum of threat and counterthreat, arm and counterarm, but in the forum of discussion, and I suggest we put it there.

   • 1962, Amitai Etzioni, The hard way to peace: a new strategy, page 89:

     If those years are devoted to an accelerated arms race, we might very well miss the big chance while still building ever- increasing piles of arms and counterarms.

   • 2013, David V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet Against Empire, →ISBN:

     Shock at finding London in the frenzy of pike and musket manufacture, and a determination to forge counterarms of art are recorded not only in the passing wind but in new prophecies and in Night VIII, a final late addition to The Four Zoas.

2. A weighted arm, or an arm that holds a weight, which acts as a counterbalance.
   • 1939, The New Yorker - Volume 15, Part 1, page 21:

     Balancing this at the other end of the teeterboard was a counterarm.

   • 1986, Harold Mansfield, Vision: a saga of the sky, page 179:

     Grotesque arms and counterarms of the balance mechanism below the tunnel wrote their mathematical hieroglyphs on the big instrument panel.

   • 2012, D. S. Parasnis, Principles of Applied Geophysics, →ISBN, page 14:

     In the Hotchkiss superdip the total intensity is determined from the deflection of a system consisting of a magnetic needle to which is fastened a counterarm carrying a small weight and making an adjustable angle with the needle.

3. (astronomy) A galactic arm on the far side of a galaxy that is colliding with another galaxy.
   • 1978, Simon Mitton, Exploring the Galaxies, →ISBN, page 103:

     On the far side of the larger galaxy a counterarm sometimes sprouts out.

   • 2004, Francoise Combes, Patrick Boissé, Alain Mazure, Galaxies and Cosmology, →ISBN, page 187:

     The deformations are triggered after the passage to perigalacticon: the two spiral arms generated are not symmetric and are distinguished by a bridge linking the two galaxies and a counterarm at the opposite side.

   • 2012, F.D. Kahn, Investigating the Universe, →ISBN:

     The very long straight tail of one is interpreted as a counterarm of one galaxy seen edge-on with the counterarm of the other galaxy seen closer to face-on as more obviously arched.