Word.ws English Dictionary

countermanded

countermanded is the simple past and past participle of countermand.

Meaning of countermand

Verb

countermand (third-person singular simple present countermands, present participle countermanding, simple past and past participle countermanded)

  1. (transitive) To revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given.
    • Near-synonym: counteract
  2. (transitive) To recall a person or unit with such an order.
  3. (transitive) To cancel an order for (some specified goods).
    • Three of the maids of honour ſent to countermand their birth-day cloaths; two of them burnt all their collections of novels and romances, and ſent to a bookſeller’s in Pall-mall to buy each of them a bible, and Taylor’s holy living and dying.1727, Jonathan Swift, A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London
  4. (figuratively, transitive) To counteract, to act against, to frustrate.
    • Early on, Ezra gives her a lesson to countermand the endless female impulse to apologise: “Darling, don’t continually say ‘I’m sorry’. Next time you feel like saying ‘I’m sorry’, instead say ‘Fuck you’.”2018 February 28, Justine Jordan, “Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday review – a dizzying debut”, in The Guardian
  5. (obsolete, transitive) To prohibit (a course of action or behavior).
    • Avicen countermands letting blood in choleric bodles.1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions
    Synonyms:
    prohibit, forbid
  6. (obsolete, transitive) To oppose or revoke the command of (someone).
    • For us to alter anything, is to lift ourselves against God; and, as it were, to countermand him.[1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)

See all 8 meanings of countermand

Words formed from countermanded

Questions about countermanded

What is countermanded the simple past and past participle of?
Countermanded is the simple past and past participle of countermand.

Words near countermanded in the dictionary

  1. countermajoritarianisms
  2. countermajoritarians
  3. counterman
  4. countermand
  5. countermandable
  6. countermanded
  7. countermander
  8. countermanders
  9. countermanding
  10. countermandings
  11. countermandment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: countermanded (page history and authors); countermand (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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Cite this entry: “countermanded.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/countermanded. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.