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''countermand'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20250719001108-00-⌔

countermand - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Verb

countermand (third-person singular simple present countermands, present participle countermanding, simple past and past participle countermanded) (transitive)

  • To revoke (a former command); to cancel or rescind by giving an order contrary to one previously given.
    • ✤ Synonyms: cancel, rescind, veto, override
    • ✤ Near-synonym: counteract
    • ✤ to countermand an order for goods
  • To recall a person or unit with such an order.
  • To 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.1
  • (figuratively) To 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’.”2
  • (obsolete) To prohibit (a course of action or behavior).
    • ✤ Synonyms: prohibit, forbid
    • ✤ Avicen countermands letting blood in choleric bodles.3
  • (obsolete) To 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.4
  • (obsolete) To 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.      5

Noun

countermand (plural countermands)

  • An order to the contrary of a previous one.

Etymology

From Old French contremander, from Medieval Latin contramandō, from contra + mandō (“to order; to command”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˌkaʊntəˈmɑːnd/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • (General American) IPA: /ˈkaʊntɚˌmænd/, /ˌkaʊntɚˈmænd/

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1727, Jonathan Swift, A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London: ↩

  2. 2018 February 28, Justine Jordan, “Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday review – a dizzying debut”, in The Guardian ‎: ↩

  3. 1672, Gideon Harvey, Morbus Anglicus, Or, The Anatomy of Consumptions: ↩

  4. [1594], Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Iohn Windet, […], →OCLC,: ↩

  5. 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: ↩

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Secondary

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