check and balance
check and balance verb: provide mutual oversight and limitation by independent organizations in order to prevent abuses of power.
Verb
check and balance (third-person singular simple present checks and balances, present participle checking and balancing, simple past and past participle checked and balanced)
- Provide mutual oversight and limitation by independent organizations in order to prevent abuses of power.
- A second distinguishing feature, Shackleton contends, is that the separation of powers also stresses the checking and balancing of one power against another, whereas the mixed state combines all interests solely to prevent or stall the inevitable degeneration of government, not to check power.1992, Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle, →ISBN, page 145
- Since each branch had exclusive powers, separated powers did not mean an aggressively political process of checking and balancing of executive policy choices by Congress.1998, Richard A. Brisbin, Jr., Justice Antonin Scalia and the Conservative Revival, →ISBN, page 46
Noun
check and balance (plural checks and balances)
- The mutual oversight provided by a system of independent organizations with control over each other.
- Whoever has taken a critical and serious look at human history will indisputably come to conclusion that man's madness and craziness know no boundary or limit even when check and balance of power are being applied.2009, Celly Luyinduladio, Hidden and Inaccessible Knowledge, →ISBN
- Because of the check and balance function of journalists, they are sometimes called the “watchdog for the people”.2013, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Freedom of Expression Toolkit: A Guide for Students, →ISBN, page 36
Examples of check and balance in a sentence
- In this way, moral check and balance is combined with legal check and balance (i.e., legally based check and balance).2014, Yining Li, Beyond Market and Government, →ISBN:
- Practices show that check and balance of powers and democratic oversight belong to two different categories, with differences in their subjects, objects, methods and other aspects.2015, Ning Fang, China’s Democracy Path, →ISBN, page 158:
Forms of check and balance
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | checks and balances |
| present participle | checking and balancing |
| past participle | checked and balanced |
| past | checked and balanced |
| Noun | |
| plural | checks and balances |
Questions about check and balance
- What does check and balance mean?
- Check and balance means provide mutual oversight and limitation by independent organizations in order to prevent abuses of power.
- How do you use check and balance in a sentence?
- In this way, moral check and balance is combined with legal check and balance (i.e., legally based check and balance).
- What part of speech is check and balance?
- Check and balance can be a verb or a noun.
- What is the past tense of check and balance?
- The past tense of check and balance is checked and balanced.
Words near check and balance in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: check and balance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-check and balance.ogg.
Cite this entry: “check and balance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/check_and_balance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.