Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A march back or in a reverse direction.
  • noun A complete reversal of method or conduct.
  • intransitive & transitive verb To execute or cause to execute a countermarch.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To march back.
  • Milit., to execute a countermarch. See countermarch, n., 2.
  • noun A marching back; a returning.
  • noun Milit., a change of the wings or face of a body of men, so as to bring the right to the left or the front to the rear, and retain the same men in the front rank: or a rear rank may become a front rank by countermarching round the end of the latter, which remains stationary.
  • noun Figuratively, a complete change or reversal of measures or conduct.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb (Mil.) To march back, or to march in reversed order.
  • noun A marching back; retrocession.
  • noun (Mil.) An evolution by which a body of troops change front or reverse the direction of march while retaining the same men in the front rank; also, a movement by which the rear rank becomes the front one, either with or without changing the right to the left.
  • noun A change of measures; alteration of conduct.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A march back along the same route
  • verb To march back along the same route

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb change the order of soldiers during a march
  • verb march back along the same way
  • noun (military) a march in the reverse direction or back along the same route

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The regime's Basij security force were charged with maintaining order and they tried to undermine the protesters For weeks, march and countermarch by the government and opposition supporters galvanized and polarized Iran with the internet acting as a conduit for each to mobilize and make a case for itself.

    Adel Iskandar: New Media and Iran's Revolutionary Impulse Adel Iskandar 2011

  • The regime's Basij security force were charged with maintaining order and they tried to undermine the protesters For weeks, march and countermarch by the government and opposition supporters galvanized and polarized Iran with the internet acting as a conduit for each to mobilize and make a case for itself.

    Adel Iskandar: New Media and Iran's Revolutionary Impulse Adel Iskandar 2011

  • The regime's Basij security force were charged with maintaining order and they tried to undermine the protesters For weeks, march and countermarch by the government and opposition supporters galvanized and polarized Iran with the internet acting as a conduit for each to mobilize and make a case for itself.

    Adel Iskandar: New Media and Iran's Revolutionary Impulse Adel Iskandar 2011

  • The regime's Basij security force were charged with maintaining order and they tried to undermine the protesters For weeks, march and countermarch by the government and opposition supporters galvanized and polarized Iran with the internet acting as a conduit for each to mobilize and make a case for itself.

    Adel Iskandar: New Media and Iran's Revolutionary Impulse Adel Iskandar 2011

  • The event, supported by the NAACP, the Urban League and Martin Luther King III, "is not a countermarch to Beck," nor will the rally be about confrontation.

    Glenn Beck's plans for rally on a hallowed date and spot spurs countermarches 2010

  • Frustrated and chagrined that they had been outfoxed yet again by the Comanches, the Fourth had no choice but to countermarch, bivouacking for the night at the site of the abandoned village.25

    EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON S. C. Gwynne 2010

  • We cannot, after all, believe that they come with any serious intention of doing us injury; it is but the insane desire of witnessing feats of battle and single combat, which is to them the breath of their nostrils, that can have impelled them to this partial countermarch.

    Count Robert of Paris 2008

  • The ANSWERbots I countermarch every week in studio city are already trying this one on.

    "Each candidate chooses the rule at the moment that is in their self-interest." Ann Althouse 2008

  • She kept hold of their hands, therefore, as if her feeble strength could have been of service, had any violence been intended, and saw with joy she could not disguise, the little party of horse countermarch, in order to descend the glen.

    The Monastery 2008

  • Editorials have been written, speeches made and even public demonstrations have been mounted both for (Red Friday's being the most obvious) and against the mission (like the protest countermarch in Quebec City during the R22eR's parade.)

    Archive 2007-07-01 2007

Comments

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  • "a change made in a military body, whereby those who were on the right, take up the ground originally occupied by the left. We always face the troops to the right or left before we give the word for a countermarch, and then it is by the right or by the left, and not in the rear or in the front as formerly." (citation in list description)

    October 10, 2008