different between counteract vs reluctant

English

Etymology

From counter- +? act.

Pronunciation

• (noun) IPA^(key): /?ka?nt???ækt/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /?ka?nt???ækt/
• Rhymes: -ækt

Noun

counteract (plural counteracts)

1. An action performed in opposition to another action.

Verb

counteract (third-person singular simple present counteracts, present participle counteracting, simple past and past participle counteracted)

1. To have a contrary or opposing effect or force on
   • 1796, Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, or, the Laws of Organic Life

     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
   • 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.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:hinder

Derived terms

Translations

English

Etymology

From Latin reluct?ns, present participle of reluctor (“to struggle against, oppose, resist”), from re- (“back”) + luctor (“to struggle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???l?kt?nt/

Adjective

reluctant (comparative more reluctant, superlative most reluctant)

1. (now rare) Opposing; offering resistance (to).
   • 1819, Lord Byron, Don Juan, II.108:

     There, breathless, with his digging nails he clung / Fast to the sand, lest the returning wave, / From whose reluctant roar his life he wrung, / Should suck him back to her insatiate grave [...].

   • 2008, Kern Alexander et al., The World Trade Organization and Trade in Services, p. 222:

     They are reluctant to the inclusion of a necessity test, especially of a horizontal nature, and emphasize, instead, the importance of procedural disciplines [...].

2. Not wanting to take some action; unwilling.

   She was reluctant to lend him the money

3. (regular expressions) Tending to match as little text as possible.

   Antonym: greedy

Synonyms

• (offering resistance to): refractory
• (not wanting to take some action): unwilling, disinclined

Related terms

• reluctance
• reluctantly

Translations

Further reading

• reluctant in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• reluctant in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• reluctant at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• tralucent