Countercharging

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A tactic involving the swift repayment of an attack or challenge with an opposing force or rebuttal
2. Engaging in a retaliatory approach where one defends against an offense by launching a counter-offensive
3. The act of responding to provocation by mounting a simultaneous charge or counterattack in a conflict or dispute

Etymology: "Countercharge" is built from "counter-" and "charge," and the second part has a surprisingly physical past. "Charge" descends from Late Latin "carricare," meaning to load a cart, from "carrus," a wheeled vehicle that Latin borrowed from Gaulish, the Celtic language of ancient Gaul. So the core idea was of loading something heavy onto a vehicle before it could be carried away. Over the centuries that sense of loading and bearing weight passed through Old French "chargier" into Middle English, where it grew to mean a burden, a responsibility, and eventually an accusation or an attack. "Counter-" comes from Latin "contra," "against," which entered English through Old French and Anglo-Norman. Put together, a countercharge is a charge made in opposition to another, which is why the military and legal senses of "charge" carry straight over into this word. The verb's present participle, "countercharging," therefore describes the act of meeting one attack with a return attack of equal force, a sense that began as a literal loaded cart pushed back against an oncoming one.