countermove

noun

coun·​ter·​move ˈkau̇n-tər-ˌmüv How to pronounce countermove (audio)
variants or counter-move
plural countermoves or counter-moves
: a move designed to check, offset, or counter another move
Chess-playing programs, for instance, were … instructed to look ahead and try to calculate all possible moves and countermoves.Tom Alexander
… had seen … a linebacker drift out and line up nose to nose on a wide receiver. It surprised them, and they had come up with a countermove.Mark Bowden
… wanted to play out the long-term implications of possible U.S. moves and Iranian countermoves.James Fallows
"Their kidnapping of Miss Tuppence is the counter-move to your escape."Agatha Christie

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web Secondly, at a time when most defenses spend most of their time in nickel packages, handing it off into a light box is a logical countermove. Nate Davis, USA TODAY, 13 Sep. 2020 The only suitable countermove, ostensibly, is to raise the retirement age to pare back the years that the average retiree will be collecting benefits. Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 2 Feb. 2023 Yet the obvious countermove, placing Ukraine under an American nuclear umbrella, risks the greatest nuclear crisis since John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev squared off over Cuba in October 1962. Walter Russell Mead, WSJ, 12 Sep. 2022 American troops are heading to Eastern Europe in the latest countermove by the U.S. to Russia’s military buildup on the country’s border with Ukraine. Matt Williams, The Conversation, 2 Feb. 2022 The leagues saw a need to make a countermove, and that was what was revealed today. Joe Harrington, USA TODAY, 24 Aug. 2021 One possible countermove was for conservative state legislators to reëngineer the way the Electoral College has worked for more than a hundred years, in essence by invoking the Independent Legislature Doctrine. Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 2 Aug. 2021 For every countermove that an offense presents, pitching presents another counter. BostonGlobe.com, 26 Apr. 2021 Hence the American countermove toward independence. William Hogeland, The New Republic, 25 Jan. 2021 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'countermove.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Word History

First Known Use

1858, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of countermove was in 1858

Dictionary Entries Near countermove

Cite this Entry

“Countermove.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/countermove. Accessed 25 Mar. 2023.

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