counterpoise

Molina, the embodiment of theatrical excellence, is perfectly cast as the rational counterpoise to Brady’s zealotry.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 7, 2023

We can counterpoise that to the pediatric possessive: “You’re going to take your bath,” “It’s time for your nap.”

From The New Yorker ● May 13, 2019

What Sofiya succeeds in doing in her novel is to counterpoise, to her husband’s inability to conjure love, her own utterly different vision.

From Slate ● Feb. 1, 2015

At times Bond acts as a counterpoise to Wanamaker's despair; at other times, as when she voices Eleanor's escalating insecurities, she brings her own tragic intensity to the role.

From The Guardian ● May 7, 2013

One conceives of the counterpoise in Stock, of Male and Female complements, as being akin to that of the opposite and complementary curves of an arch.

From Feminism and Sex-Extinction by Arabella Kenealy

In a cluttered information age, where attention is a prized and scarce commodity, Nuzzi and Lizza—with their perfectly counterpoised surnames—have somehow broken through.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 6, 2025

In the more lush musical passages, she counterpoised a subtle sense of freeze-framing, with the dancers halting momentarily so we could absorb the length and reach of their unfolding shapes.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 25, 2019

It’s composed in a rare register: mourning and fury counterpoised by humor and a refusal of despair.

From New York Times ● Feb. 20, 2018

The drama of her grieving swoon is conveyed not by flourishes but by sobriety — broad, smooth, unadorned garments counterpoised with deep shadows cast in their folds.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 13, 2017

As the mercury rises in the pressure tube this iron wire is pushed up, being very delicately counterpoised over a wheel.

From Paint Technology and Tests by Henry A. Gardner

Also, a counterpoising log of wood, rigged out from the side of a narrow boat or canoe, to prevent it from being upset.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

The attraction exerted on a flat armature across air gaps 2 millimeters thick was measured by counterpoising.

From Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 by Various

This was usually done on the pretense of picking up the counterpoising weight which had been purposely left on the ground.

From The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir by John M. Garvan

Tested in this way, a body would, of course, weigh precisely the same anywhere; for if the gravitation of the body is altered, so is also in equal proportion the gravitation of the counterpoising weights.

From The Story of the Heavens by Sir Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball

The counterpoising or balancing medium consisted of money to be given to the Church.

From The Mysteries of All Nations Rise and Progress of Superstition, Laws Against and Trials of Witches, Ancient and Modern Delusions Together With Strange Customs, Fables, and Tales by James Grant