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countersense

noun

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Italic *-teros Proto-Italic *komterosder. Proto-Italic *komterād Latin contrāder. Old French contre- Anglo-Norman countre-bor. Middle English counter- English counter- Proto-Indo-European *sent-der. Proto-Italic *sentjō Latin sentiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin sēnsusbor. Proto-Germanic *sinnaz Frankish *sinnbor. Vulgar Latin *sennus Old French sensbor. Middle English sense English sense English countersense From counter- + sense; adaptation of French contresens.

  1. derived from *sent-✻ — “to feel”
  2. derived from *sinn✻
  3. derived from *sennus✻ — “sense, reason, way”
  4. derived from sēnsus — “sensation, feeling, meaning”
  5. derived from sens, sen, san — “sense, perception, direction”
  6. inherited from sense
  7. prefixed as countersense — “counter + sense”

Definitions

  1. An opposite meaning.

    • Panurge's comedy is the agony of indecision as he struggles obstinately and vainly to interpret every unfavorable omen in its countersense, to substitute his willful imagining for reality and fate.

  2. A nonsensical idea

    A nonsensical idea; a contradiction in terms; something that contradicts an established principle, architectural or musical style, etc.

    • On that line we reach simply the old countersense: "All is Reality" is as meaningless a proposition as "All is Illusion."

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for countersense. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA