countermand

present singular third person countermands · participle present countermanding · participle past countermanded · past countermanded

1. transitiveTo revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given.

   Near-synonym: counteract

   1 more example

   to countermand an order for goods

   Synonyms: cancel, rescind, veto, override, counteract

2. transitiveTo recall a person or unit with such an order.
3. transitiveTo cancel an order for (some specified goods).

   Three of the maids of honour ſent to countermand their birth-day cloaths; two of them burnt all their collections of novels and romances, and ſent to a bookſeller’s in Pall-mall to buy each of them a bible, and Taylor’s holy living and dying.

   1727, Jonathan Swift, A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London

4. figurativelytransitiveTo counteract, to act against, to frustrate.

   Early on, Ezra gives her a lesson to countermand the endless female impulse to apologise: “Darling, don’t continually say ‘I’m sorry’. Next time you feel like saying ‘I’m sorry’, instead say ‘Fuck you’.”

   2018 February 28, Justine Jordan, “Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday review – a dizzying debut”, in The Guardian

5. obsoletetransitiveTo prohibit (a course of action or behavior).

   Avicen countermands letting blood in choleric bodles.

   1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions

   Synonyms: prohibit, forbid

6. obsoletetransitiveTo oppose or revoke the command of (someone).

   For us to alter anything, is to lift ourselves against God; and, as it were, to countermand him.

   [1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page)

7. obsoletetransitiveTo maintain control of, to keep under command.

   Two thousand horſe ſhal forrage vp and downe, That no reliefe or ſuccour come by land. And all the ſea my Gallies countermaund.

   c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene i

plural countermands

1. transitiveAn order to the contrary of a previous one.