counterfort

English

Etymology

From Middle French contrefort.

Noun

counterfort (plural counterforts)

1. A buttress built against a wall.
   • 2011, Gareth J. Hearn, Slope Engineering for Mountain Roads, →ISBN, page 209:

     The soil above the base of a reinforced concrete cantilever or counterfort wall is included as part of the weight of the wall in stability calculations.

   • 2021 April 7, “Network News: A long-standing problem: Victorian efforts to secure unstable slopes”, in RAIL, number 928, page 11:

     Mair reports work described in 1844 to install counterforts in slopes, which were typically trenches that were two metres wide and around eight metres apart. They were dug down one metre and backfilled with gravel or rubble stone to provide internal buttresses and deep drains.

2. A spur of a mountain range.
   • 1884, Ernest George Ravenstein & al. trans. Élisée Reclus, The Earth and Its Inhabitants, Vol. VI: Asia, Vol. I, p. 165:

     With its counterforts projecting some 300 miles, [the Pamir] forms the western headland of all the plateaux and mountain systems skirting the Chinese Empire; it completely separates the two halves of Asia, and forms an almost impassable barrier to migration and warlike incursions.

   • 1899, Edward John Payne, History of the New World Called America: book II, page 428:

     This angle is buttressed from the interior by an enormous counterfort of lower mountain country, extending several hundred miles to the eastward, forming the main part of the highlands of Bolivia, and separating the tributaries of the Amazon

   • 1913, Costa Rica-Panama arbitration: argument of Costa Rica, page 428:

     The physical impossibility of the line along the counterfort or mountain range from Punta Mona was easily demonstrated, for the very simple reason that no such counterfort or mountain range existed.

References

• The Imperial Dictionary of the English Language (1882)