countering

Verb

counter (third-person singular simple present counters, present participle countering, simple past and past participle countered)

1. To contradict, oppose.
   • I don't remember the conversation totally verbatim, yet I remember the tone — increasingly angry on my part, and flippant and snide on his. We countered back and forth at least three times.1979 February 10, Pat M. Kuras, “The Rubber Gun Backfires”, in Gay Community News, volume 6, number 28, page 5
2. To return a blow while receiving one, as in boxing.
   • His left hand countered provokingly.1857, Charles Kingsley, “(please specify the page)”, in Two Years Ago, volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC
3. To take action in response to; to respond.
   • David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.2012 December 14, Simon Jenkins, “We mustn't overreact to North Korea boys' toys”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 2, page 23
4. (obsolete, transitive) To encounter.

See all 29 meanings of counter