- 1抵消、對消
To counteract something is to do another thing that has the opposite effect, so the first thing’s harm gets smaller or does not happen. A medicine can counteract a poison. A walk after a long day at a desk can counteract sitting still. A kind word can counteract a cruel one, at least a little. Doctors, teachers, and careful writers like this verb. It does not mean you smash the first thing; it means you push the other way. Though actually, people also use it loosely for any “fight against,” even when the second action is not a true opposite, only a response. It is about effects, not about sentences: contradict is “say the opposite,” and that is a different word.
From the word’s history
From counter- + act.
counter-（相反）加 act（作用）：起反作用、抵銷。
組成From counter- + act. Counter- came from Latin contra, “against,” through Old French and Middle English. Act came from Latin (agō / ācta) through Old French acte.
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
counteractnoun/ˈkaʊntəɹˌækt/
- 1
An action performed in opposition to another action.
- This flesh and blood of Christ's human body, as the redeeming substance, should have been eaten by man as an act of obedience to the command, 'Take, eat,' &c., as a counteract to the act of disobedience, and as a work meet for repentance.
- Every time there is a march by the Ku Klux Klan or a swastika painted on a Jewish building, there could be a counteract of reconciliation within twenty-four hours.
counteractverb/ˈkaʊntəɹˌækt/
- 1
To have a contrary or opposing effect or force on someone or something.
- Another tide is raised at the same time on the opposite side of the revolving earth; which is owing to the greater centrifugal motion of that side of the earth, which counteracts the gravitation of bodies near its surface.
- 1911, 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica - Dome In India, in the “great mosque” of Jama Masjid (a.d. 1560) and the Gol Gumbaz, or tomb of Mahommed Adil Shah (a.d. 1630) at Bijapur, the domes are carried on pendentives consisting of arches crossing one another and projecting inwards, and their weight counteracts any thrust there may be in the dome.
- 2
To deliberately act in opposition to, to thwart or frustrate.
- It took a long time for the place to warm up and to counteract the cold and enable their fingers to cope with the delicate task of moulding, the men would often surround themselves with blocks of iron heated in the furnace.
- 2016, Margaret Corvid writing in the New Statesman, Five practical things you can do to fight Donald Trump if you live in the UK When people hear my American accent, they want to talk to me about Donald Trump. They want to ask me what happened, and why. But most of all, they ask me – with fear filling their voices – what they can do, as individuals, to counteract him, here, from the United Kingdom.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。