Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A return attack.
- intransitive & transitive verb To deliver a return attack or make a return attack against.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative spelling of
counter-attack . - verb Alternative spelling of
counter-attack .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun an attack by a defending force against an attacking enemy force in order to regain lost ground or cut off enemy advance units etc.
- verb make a counterattack
- noun (chess) an attack that is intended to counter the opponent's advantage in another part of the board
Etymologies
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Examples
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Mr. Feingold's counterattack is fierce and personal in ways that past campaigns of his weren't.
Wisconsin Sours On Its Self-Styled Maverick Matthew Kaminski 2010
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Regardless of other issues that a nuclear conflict short of a massive exchange would cause (such as damage to the nation's electronic infrastructure from electromagnetic pulses from the blasts to even a small amount of nuclear soot being shoved into the atmosphere, and the concordant drop in global temperatures, etc.), no minor nuclear power could destroy the United States without a massive, nation-ending counterattack from the Americans.
Robert Mackey: The Only Real "Existential Threat": A Sane Path for Reducing Nuclear Arsenals 2009
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China, which defeated England on Friday 2-0, had a few shots in counterattack, but spent much of the game defending.
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The counterattack from the right wing is the same predictable cant: you lefties are soft on terrorism and you care more about the rights of criminals than you do about the rights of citizens.
October 2006 2006
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Finally the Shermans arrived took the objective and resisted the counterattack from the German reserves to win the battle.
Camp Cromwell 30/03/06 Cromwell MkI 2006
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Finally the Shermans arrived took the objective and resisted the counterattack from the German reserves to win the battle.
Archive 2006-03-01 Cromwell MkI 2006
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It's very good this month -- there's a very sharp analysis on why counterattack is a bad idea:
Boing Boing: December 15, 2002 - December 21, 2002 Archives 2002
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In fact, the next morning, when the 4th Infantry Division would cross Utah Beach, they would link up through the exits with the Airborne, and find that the beachhead had been completely protected from any threat of counterattack from the Germans.
Briefing On D Day And Its Commemoration Events ITY National Archives 1994
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The Ervin counterattack thus runs the risk of creating a generation of weak Presidents in an age when the turbulence of race, poverty, inflation, crime, and urban decay is straining the delicate bonds of national cohesion and demanding, quite as much as in the 1930s, a strong domestic presidency to hold the country together.
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The Ervin counterattack thus runs the risk of creating a generation of weak Presidents in an age when the turbulence of race, poverty, inflation, crime, and urban decay is straining the delicate bonds of national cohesion and demanding, quite as much as in the 1930s, a strong domestic presidency to hold the country together.
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