Counterarm
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A weapon that is acquired in order to counter one held by an opponent.
"The submarine is the dominating weapon today. Undersea boats spell a nameless, historical terror because no effective counterarm has been perfected."
- 2 A weighted arm, or an arm that holds a weight, which acts as a counterbalance.
"Balancing this at the other end of the teeterboard was a counterarm."
- 3 A galactic arm on the far side of a galaxy that is colliding with another galaxy.
"On the far side of the larger galaxy a counterarm sometimes sprouts out."
- 1 To arm oneself in order to match the level of weaponry held by an opponent.
"After all, according to the letter of the 1979 NATO decision, the NATO council was supposed to examine first the results of the Soviet-U.S. talks and then to take a decision on whether to counterarm, as they call it in the West, or not to counterarm."
Example
More examples"After all, according to the letter of the 1979 NATO decision, the NATO council was supposed to examine first the results of the Soviet-U.S. talks and then to take a decision on whether to counterarm, as they call it in the West, or not to counterarm."
Etymology
From counter- + arm.
More for "counterarm"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.