Counterbrace
verb
verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To brace in opposite directions. transitive
"To counterbrace the yards is to brace the head yards one way and the after yards another."
- 2 To brace in such a way that opposite strains are resisted. transitive
"Here a, b, and c are the great ribs whose thrusts, in the direction of the arrows, are concentrated upon the pier, d, and are counterbraced by the flying buttress, e. In other words, the section through the vaulting conoid at half its vertical height gives the triangle, a, b, c, in A, and not the square, a, b, c, d, in B in the same figure."
Example
More examples"To counterbrace the yards is to brace the head yards one way and the after yards another."
Etymology
From counter- + brace.
More for "counterbrace"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.