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What is "countervailing"

Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
countervailing
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Some companies in the industry are in trouble, but there are countervailing forces that will help others survive.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But such benefits as we may find here and elsewhere entail countervailing disadvantages.
▪ But the liberalising trends are not blind moves towards laissez-faire, but the product of many countervailing forces in the local society.
▪ However, there are countervailing forces which might result in a lower volume of services.
▪ However, there are countervailing pressures.
▪ It was this last, clearly tyrannical, action which stirred Anselm to take the only countervailing measure open to him.
▪ The issue of countervailing measures was a particular point at issue during discussions.
▪ Time has often become a countervailing force against quality.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Countervailing

Countervail \Coun`ter*vail"\ (koun`t?r-v?l"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Countervailed (-v?ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Countervailing.] [OF. contrevaloir; contre (L. contra) + valoir to avail, fr. L. valere to be strong, avail. See Vallant.] To act against with equal force, power, or effect; to thwart or overcome by such action; to furnish an equivalent to or for; to counterbalance; to compensate.

Upon balancing the account, the profit at last will hardly countervail the inconveniences that go allong with it.
--L'Estrange.

Wiktionary
countervailing

vb. (present participle of countervail English)

WordNet
countervailing

  1. adj. compensating for [syn: offsetting, compensatory, compensative]

  2. acting against with equal force or influence

Usage examples of "countervailing".

More significant, perhaps, Iran launched plans for reintegrating itself into the gulf security system, a move intended to strengthen its own interests while providing the Arab gulf states with a countervailing force against a future threat from Iraq.

If we're going to take a black eye over Cerberus, then it's going to be up to you to win us some countervailing talking points by kicking some more Manticoran butt in the field.

I suspect, however, that there are countervailing considerations of which you are, as yet, unaware.

Setting aside the countervailing experience of Khomeini's Iran, the specific evidence we have regarding Saddam is that this is not necessarily the case.

However, there are also some important countervailing pressures with regard to timing.

So if we want any realistic chance of keeping control of our own star systems and our own souls, we're going to have to come up with some sort of countervailing coordination of our own.

But, to be perfectly honest, the Lynx Terminus represents the only powerful selfish reason for us to be involved in this region, and there are many countervailing reasons why we shouldn't be here.

And secondly a countervailing ferocity in his apprehension of the peculiar disorders and distortions of the modern era.

There are literary reasons, after all, for not 'using' real things, including oneself, without some countervailing broadness of vision or design.

But there is a countervailing urge 'to send the soul out into society', 'to see at first hand the big manifestations of disorder and take a fresh reading from them'.