counterpoise

plural counterpoises

1. A weight sufficient to balance another, for example in the opposite end of scales; an equal weight.
2. An effect of equal power or force acting in opposition; a force sufficient to balance another force or influence

   This necessary counterpoise, the affectionate and simple-minded will readily conceive, would arise to Louisa from the absence of those "dear familiar faces" which had hitherto constituted her world.

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 200

3. The relation of two weights or forces which balance each other; equilibrium

   Synonyms: equiponderance

present singular third person counterpoises · participle present counterpoising · participle past counterpoised · past counterpoised

1. To act against with equal weight; to equal in weight; to balance the weight of; to counterbalance.

   Weights, counterpoising one another.

   1644, Kenelme [i.e., Kenelm] Digby, Two Treatises. In the One of which, the Nature of Bodies; in the Other, the Nature of Mans Soule; is Looked into: In Way of Discovery, of the Immortality of Reasonable Soules, Paris: […] Gilles Blaizot, →OCLC

2. To act against with equal power; to balance.

   So many freeholders of English […]will be able to beard, and to counterpoise the rest.

   1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC