counterbalance
Americannoun
verb (used with or without object)
noun
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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counterbalancesimple
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counterbalancessimple
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have counterbalancedperfect
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has counterbalancedperfect
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am counterbalancingprogressive
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are counterbalancingprogressive
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is counterbalancingprogressive
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have been counterbalancingperfect progressive
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has been counterbalancingperfect progressive
Past
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counterbalancedsimple
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had counterbalancedperfect
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was counterbalancingprogressive
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were counterbalancingprogressive
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had been counterbalancingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of counterbalance
Vocabulary lists containing counterbalance
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“Badlands,” where Springsteen exhorts, “talk about a dream, try to make it real,” comes after “Tom Joad” as a counterbalance to the tale of hope and despair that precedes it.
From Salon ● May 28, 2026
"And the best way to counterbalance it is with a living example, with reality,"
From BBC ● May 20, 2026
Noting that this year, professional juries were returning to the semi-finals as a counterbalance to the public vote, "we have one of the most safest, secure and fair voting systems," he told reporters.
From Barron's ● May 11, 2026
Viewers are meant to think this banal instance of unseemly actions provides a counterbalance to the initial revelation about the other partner, but it’s not in the same moral universe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 2, 2026
“Listen, I know what happened earlier was heavy stuff. The deliverance prayer can be pretty draining. But can I tell you something that might counterbalance what you heard here last night?”
From "Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet" by Joanne Proulx
But as fertility rates fall, migration counterbalances the negative effects of an ageing population and labour force contraction, the report said.
From Barron's ● Jul. 14, 2026
This distant mass counterbalances the Local Group's gravity.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 6, 2026
There are moments of tender resplendence that are as piercing as the cruelty — compassion that counterbalances the inhumanities Elwood faces.
From Salon ● Dec. 13, 2024
But he cites longstanding maritime connections and the military police as reassuring counterbalances.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2023
If intellectual progress carried with it inferior sociability, it would tend to be eliminated; the world would be to the stupid; it must carry with it something which counterbalances the anti-social tendency.
From A Review of the Systems of Ethics Founded on the Theory of Evolution by Williams, C. M.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who authored the opinions in Slaughter and Cook, handed them down as a paired set, as though one counterbalanced the other.
From Slate ● Jun. 29, 2026
To keep his equations from predicting a collapsing universe, he introduced the cosmological constant as a kind of repulsive effect in empty space that counterbalanced gravity.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 19, 2026
You might wonder why this negative effect isn’t counterbalanced by the more upbeat mood of investors whose favorite team has won.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 18, 2026
This biography astutely portrays how “Diggs’s personal failures and weaknesses” counterbalanced his impressive professional strengths and prematurely ended a career of no little significance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2025
A population’s inherent inclination to expand would be severely counterbalanced by the limitations of resources; its natural wont met by natural want.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
And then the relationship with Andi is so counterbalancing in a really delightful way.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
Another is Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, which adviser Mike Casey, who is based in Alexandria, Va., suggested as a way to provide an inflation hedge for retirees — something that is important beyond simply counterbalancing stocks.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 30, 2026
But Mr. Brown, in his refusal to credit counterbalancing positives, such as Roosevelt’s prodigious intellect or his genuine empathy for the less fortunate, risks reducing TR to a one-dimensional straw man.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 29, 2025
"Our research suggests that the counterbalancing temperature and emission feedbacks should be considered to improve the accuracy of climate change predictions in the Arctic."
From Science Daily ● Nov. 26, 2024
“I will here express but one sentiment,” Hamilton warned his Federalist colleagues, “which is, the Dismemberment of our Empire will be a clear sacrifice...without any counterbalancing good.”
From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
