Obs. Also 7 counterbough. [COUNTER- 3, 11.]
1. A blow in the contrary direction; a blow given in return; the blow or shock of a recoil.
1575. Laneham, Lett. (1871), 25. The buff at the man, and the coounterbuff at the hors.
1591. Harington, Orl. Fur., XVII. lxvii. (1634), 133. Yet was the counterbuffe thereof so great, The Knight had much ado to keepe his seate.
1594. Kyd, Cornelia, V. in Hazl., Dodsley, V. 243. One while the top [of the tree] doth almost touch the earth, And then it riseth with a counterbuff.
1611. Dekker, Roaring Girle, Wks. 1873, III. 158. Had he offerd but the least counter-buffe, by this hand I was prepared for him.
1613. Walton, in Reliq. Wotton. (1672), 406. Sommerset, who with a counter-buff had almost set himself out of the Saddle.
1633. B. Jonson, Love’s Welc. Welbeck. The blow … You gave Sir Quintain, and the cuff You ’scape o’ the sand-bag’s counter-buff.
fig. 1581. J. Bell, Haddon’s Answ. Osor., 258 b. If Luther should use this … counterbuffe … agaynst your rusty, clownish, and illfavored Divinitie.
1641. Milton, Prelat. Episc. (1851), 91. Where they give the Romanist one buffe, they receive two counter-buffs.
2. A rebuff, a check.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 650. There fell misliking betwixt Cicero and Cato, for this Counterbuff he had given him.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 263. He did not commonly suffer any great Humane Prosperity, to continue long, without some check or counterbuff.
3. An encounter; an exchange of blows.
1632. Sir T. Hawkins, trans. Mathieu’s Vnhappy Prosperitie, 15. Mischiefe required there should be distance betweene such terrible counterbuffes.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., I. III. v. Sir Edward Herbert is return’d, having had som clashings and counterbuffs with the Favorite Luynes.
1656. Beale, Chesse, Ded. Verses A vj. Nor my leasure sings The Counterbuffs of the foure painted Kings.
