Counterfactual

//ˌkaʊntɚˈfæktʃuəl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A claim, hypothesis, or other belief that is contrary to the facts.
  2. 2
    A hypothetical state of the world, used to assess the impact of an action.

    "Just as counterfactuals employ too much imagination to qualify as historical works, alternate history often labors under too great a load of artificial "facts" to take flight as fiction."

  3. 3
    A conditional statement in which the conditional clause is false.
Adjective
  1. 1
    Contrary to known or agreed facts; untrue. not-comparable

    "a leaderless disinformation campaign, with claims leaping from conspiracy theorists to state propagandists to alternative-media outlets and back—an ecosystem I call the Counterfactual Community."

  2. 2
    Of or in comparison to a hypothetical state of the world. not-comparable

    "What would have happened if those great Chinese voyages [by Zheng He] had continued? It's one of those questions in counter-factual history about which it is impossible to be sure."

Adjective
  1. 1
    going counter to the facts (usually as a hypothesis) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
;contrafactualcontrary to factcontrary to factcounterfactfalse

Example

More examples

"a leaderless disinformation campaign, with claims leaping from conspiracy theorists to state propagandists to alternative-media outlets and back—an ecosystem I call the Counterfactual Community."

Etymology

From counter- + factual.

Related phrases

counterfactual conditionalalternative fact

More for "counterfactual"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.