[COUNTER- 3, 2.]
† 1. A ‘check,’ rebuke or reproof in reply to or return for another. Obs.
1559. Primer, in Priv. Prayers (1851), 47. I became as a man not hearing, and having no counterchecks in his mouth.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., V. iv. 84. If againe, it was not well cut, he wold say, I lie: this is call’d the counter-checke quarrelsome.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Counter-check, a Censure made upon a Reprover.
2. A check that opposes or arrests the course of anything.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 224. Who painefully … Haue brought a counter-checke before your gates.
1647. N. Bacon, Disc. Govt. Eng., I. lxvii. (1739), 168. These Inquests … soon met with a countercheck from the Law.
1749. F. Smith, Voy. Disc. N. W. Pass., II. 85. Suddenly there came a violent countercheck of Tide from the South West.
1816. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1843), I. 212. The evil that we suffer is often a countercheck which restrains us from greater evil.
1832. Lytton, Eugene A., I. vii. There is no counter-check to its emotions.
3. A check that operates against or controls a check.
1832. Lyell, Princ. Geol., II. 133. The checks and counterchecks which nature has appointed to preserve the balance of power amongst species.
1842. Tennyson, Two Voices, 300. Many things perplex, With motions, checks, and counterchecks.
1892. Standard, 15 June, 5/2. There ought … to have been check and counter check, and the lâches even of a responsible person would have been atoned for by the vigilance of others.
