Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
counterclockwise \coun"ter*clock"wise\ adj. & adv. in the opposite direction to that in which the hands of a clock rotate, as viewed from in front of the clock face; -- of rotatory motion or spiral direction. Opposite of clockwise, or right-handed
Note: [Narrower terms: sinistral levororotary, levorotatory]
Syn: left-handed.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. (context US Canada English) Moving or located in the direction of rotation opposite from clockwise adv. (context US Canada English) In the direction of rotation opposite from clockwise.
WordNet
adj. in the direction opposite to the rotation of the hands of a clock [syn: anticlockwise, contraclockwise] [ant: clockwise]
adv. in a direction opposite to the direction in which the hands of a clock move; "please move counterclockwise in a circle!" [syn: anticlockwise] [ant: clockwise]
Usage examples of "counterclockwise".
Estevan walked clockwise, Clio counterclockwise around the perimeter, where the floodlights did a fairly good job of illumination except for the dark patches between the widely spaced lights.
I inserted the tension wrench into the bottom of the keyway opposite the pins and applied light pressure counterclockwise, in the direction I expected the lock to turn.
The Spear Mark formed a laneway for her, in a spiral that led counterclockwise around the blaze again and again.
One regiment of the 3rd Division was to capture Agrigento while the Rangers out front were swinging around it counterclockwise for a return to the coast.
Since air flows counterclockwise around these storms, the winds come out of the northeast as they move offshore.
But Florian, in the lead as always, persevered, and the parade succeeded in going counterclockwise the entire seven-mile circuit of the variously named boulevard and then the two miles farther along the Peterburgskoe Chaussée to the Petrovskiy Park.
Before they started, Lark and Rosethorn did an odd thing: they walked a circle around the cottage, Lark going clockwise, Rosethorn counterclockwise.
That shadow slowly turned counterclockwise, with the clockwise rotation of the globe.
Its companion star, which rotated counterclockwise as opposed to its giant brother, was far smaller but much hotter, a yellow-green furnace.
For instance, it's unclear whether the male pig, in the midst of his amatory labors, employs a clockwise or a counterclockwise rotation.
To my eye the vortex seemed to accelerate, to make its grand counterclockwise rotation in seconds, so that I could appreciate the whole of it.
Then, I fuck her deep and hard, in and out, sensuously, gyrating clockwise and counterclockwise, and before long she matches her movements to mine.
Here, for example, is the physicist Michio Kaku explaining the structure of the universe from a superstring perspective: “The heterotic string consists of a closed string that has two types of vibrations, clockwise and counterclockwise, which are treated differently.
Senator Day twirled his highball glass first clockwise then counterclockwise.
Beside/below me, where I dangled but a couple of feet above the floor, hummed the Rhennius machine: three jet-black housings set in a line on a circular platform that rotated slowly in a counterclockwise direction, the end units each extruding a shaft-one vertical, one horizontal-about which passed what appeared to be a Moebius strip of a belt almost a meter in width, one strand half running through a tunnel in the curved and striated central unit, which faintly resembled a wide hand cupped as in the act of scratching.