noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Opposition; resistance. countable, obsolete, uncountable

   "Let cheerfulneſs on happy Fortune wait, / And give not thus the Counter-time to Fate."

2. 2
   The resistance of a horse that interrupts its cadence and the measure of its manège, caused by bad horsemanship or the bad temper of the horse. countable, obsolete, uncountable

Example

More examples

"Let cheerfulneſs on happy Fortune wait, / And give not thus the Counter-time to Fate."

Etymology

From counter- + time. Compare contretemps.

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