Word.ws English Dictionary

countersway

countersway noun: a swaying in a contrary direction, or an opposing influence.

Noun

countersway (plural countersways)

  1. (obsolete) A swaying in a contrary direction, or an opposing influence.
    • a countersway of restraint, curbing their wild exorbitance1643, J[ohn] M[ilton], The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: […], London: […] T[homas] P[aine] and M[atthew] S[immons] […], →OCLC

Verb

countersway (third-person singular simple present countersways, present participle counterswaying, simple past and past participle counterswayed)

  1. (rare) To sway in the opposite direction, or (figurative) to hae opposing influence.
    • The Kop[…]sways and countersways to the music2011, Stephen F. Kelly, The Kop: Liverpool's Twelfth Man

Forms of countersway

Noun
pluralcountersways
Verb
third-person singular presentcountersways
present participlecounterswaying
past participlecounterswayed
pastcounterswayed

Origin of countersway

From counter- + sway.

Questions about countersway

What does countersway mean?
Countersway means a swaying in a contrary direction, or an opposing influence.
What part of speech is countersway?
Countersway can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of countersway?
The plural of countersway is countersways.

Words near countersway in the dictionary

  1. countersurge
  2. countersurges
  3. countersurprise
  4. countersurprises
  5. countersurveillance
  6. countersway
  7. countersways
  8. counterswear
  9. counterswearing
  10. counterswears
  11. counterswing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: countersway (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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