COUNTERPOISE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Counterpoise

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

verb

Counterpoise v. t. (past & past part. counterpoised; pres. part. counterpoising)

To act against with equal weight; to equal in weight; to balance the weight of; to counterbalance. "Weights, counterpoising one another."

To act against with equal power; to balance. "So many freeholders of English will be able to beard and counterpoise the rest."

noun

Counterpoise n.

A weight sufficient to balance another, as in the opposite scale of a balance; an equal weight. "Fastening that to our exact balance, we put a metalline counterpoise into the opposite scale."

An equal power or force acting in opposition; a force sufficient to balance another force. "The second nobles are a counterpoise to the higher nobility, that they grow not too potent."

The relation of two weights or forces which balance each other; equilibrium; equiponderance. "The pendulous round eart, with balanced air, In counterpoise."

See images of 'Counterpoise'

Etymology of 'Counterpoise'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Counterpoise" Quotes from Famous Books

... view, he should have criticized the boy's crude compositions with some severity was perfectly natural; equally so that the petted and bepraised boy should have felt these criticisms keenly. But the severity of the master was no more than a necessary counterpoise to the injudicious praise of others. That Beethoven, however he may have spoken of Neefe to Wegeler and Schindler, did at times have a due consciousness of his obligations to his old master, is proved by a letter which he ...

— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... the islands of that great archipelago. [32] It is about one hundred leguas in circumference. Its climate is very hot, although the continual rains somewhat temper its unendurable heat. In its rains it exceeds all the other nearby islands. However this relief bears the counterpoise of making the island but little favorable to health, because of the bad consequences of the heat accompanied by the humidity. But for all that it is a very fertile land, although unequally so because of its rough ...

— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... generally laden with splendid fish. The evening breeze often attains such strength that the little boats would capsize if it were not for a balancing-board pushed out to windward, on which one or two, or sometimes three, men stand to act as a counterpoise, so that it may not be necessary to shorten sail. The Malays excel in boat-building, and rank very high in the art of shaping vessels which offer the least possible resistance to the water, and their boats fly over the surface of the sea in the most wonderful manner. ...

— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation ...

— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal

... the gate of the castle, protected in part from the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat; the others retreated back ...

— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

More quotes...