Word.ws English Dictionary

countercuff

countercuff noun: a polemical response.

Noun

countercuff (plural countercuffs)

  1. (archaic, rare) A polemical response.
    • In Poetaster, or The Arraignment (printed 1602) Jonson gave a countercuff to his antagonists by ridiculing Marston as Crispinus and Dekker as Demetrius, and presenting himself as Horace.1941, George Sampson, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, page 299
    • Gosson's plea that Poetry makes men effeminate directly inspires Sidney's memorable countercuff that it, above all things, is the companion of camps⁶.1950, George Gregory Smith, “Introduction”, in Elizabethan Critical Essays, volume 1, page xxix

Examples of countercuff in a sentence

  • As a countercuff to visual media, he lays down the ‘general principle’ that arts which leave the imagination something to do excel those that minister to passive consumers.1973, The Listener, volume 89, BBC, page 218:
  • That could be Jonson's countercuff to Polixenes' speech ('The art itself is nature'), and to Mrs Taleporter's true ballads.1982, E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare's Impact on His Contemporaries, page 118:
  • William Levy has sent a countercuff which we dare not print, but if he publishes it in another journal, we promise to give the reference.2000, “Notes and News”, in The Gissing Journal, volume XXXVI, number 3, page 38:

Forms of countercuff

pluralcountercuffs

Origin of countercuff

From counter- + cuff (“blow, hit”), first used in the title of the 1589 polemical tract A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Iunior by the pseudonymous "venturuous, hardie, and renowned" Cavaliero Pasquill.

Questions about countercuff

What does countercuff mean?
Countercuff means a polemical response.
How do you use countercuff in a sentence?
As a countercuff to visual media, he lays down the ‘general principle’ that arts which leave the imagination something to do excel those that minister to passive consumers.
What part of speech is countercuff?
Countercuff is a noun.
What is the plural of countercuff?
The plural of countercuff is countercuffs.

Words near countercuff in the dictionary

  1. countercross
  2. countercrossed
  3. countercrosses
  4. countercrossing
  5. countercry
  6. countercuff
  7. countercuffs
  8. countercult
  9. countercultist
  10. countercultists
  11. countercultural

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: countercuff (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “countercuff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/countercuff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.