counterchange

English

Etymology

From Middle French contrechange (noun), contrechanger (verb).

Verb

counterchange (third-person singular simple present counterchanges, present participle counterchanging, simple past and past participle counterchanged)

1. To give and receive; C; to exchange.
2. To checker; to diversify, as in heraldic counterchanging.
   • 1849, Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 89, lines 1781–1782:

     Witch-elms that counterchange the floor / Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright.

Synonyms

• (to cause to change places): interchange, swap; See also Thesaurus:switch
• (to checker): checker, freck (rare, poetic)

Noun

counterchange (plural counterchanges)

1. (obsolete) An exchange of one thing for another.
2. (obsolete) Due return (for an action etc.); reciprocation.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But Paridell sore brused with the blow, / Could not arise, the counterchaunge to scorse [...].

References

• “counterchange”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “counterchange”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.