countervail

English

Etymology

From Anglo-Norman countrevaloir ( = Old French contrevaloir), from Latin contrā valēre (“to be worth against”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkaʊntəveɪl/

Verb

countervail (third-person singular simple present countervails, present participle countervailing, simple past and past participle countervailed)

1. (obsolete) To have the same value as.
2. To counteract, counterbalance or neutralize.
3. To compensate for.
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 38, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     I am one of those who thinke their fruit can no way countervaile this losse.

   • L'Estrange

     Upon balancing the account, the profit at last will hardly countervail the inconveniences that go along with it.

   • 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

• Bulgarian: уравновесявам (bg) (uravnovesjavam)

• Finnish: tasoittaa (fi)

to compensate for

• Bulgarian: компенсирам (bg) (kompensiram)
• Finnish: kompensoida (fi)

• Russian: компенсировать (ru) (kompensirovatʹ)

Anagrams

• involucrate