countermove

noun

coun·ter·move ˈkau̇n-tər-ˌmüv

variants or counter-move

plural countermoves or counter-moves

: a move designed to check, offset, or counter another move

Chess-playing programs, for instance, were … instructed to look ahead and try to calculate all possible moves and countermoves.—

Tom Alexander

… had seen … a linebacker drift out and line up nose to nose on a wide receiver. It surprised them, and they had come up with a countermove.—

Mark Bowden

… wanted to play out the long-term implications of possible U.S. moves and Iranian countermoves.—

James Fallows

"Their kidnapping of Miss Tuppence is the counter-move to your escape."—

Agatha Christie

Examples of countermove in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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The players announced their moves and countermoves, negotiated, interrupted one another and occasionally shouted over our unflappable controller, Ed McGrady, an experienced game architect. —

Barton Gellman, Washington Post, 30 July 2024 These countermoves are whipping up a default perfect storm. —

Carla Norrlof, Foreign Affairs, 18 Mar. 2022 Instead of digesting this laughable conclusion and making a cunning countermove, Danvers lashes out, accusing Kate and the mine of covering up Annie K.’s murder and the water pollution near Ennis. —

Amanda Whiting, Vulture, 9 Feb. 2024 This interplay ensures that the balance of survival never stagnates, as each evolutionary innovation prompts a countermove in the complex chess game of predator-prey relationships. —

Scott Travers, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2024 See all Example Sentences for countermove