countercuff

countercuff

English

Etymology

From counter- +‎ cuff (“blow, hit”), first used in the title of the 1589 polemical tract A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Iunior by the pseudonymous "venturuous, hardie, and renowned" Cavaliero Pasquill.

Noun

countercuff (plural countercuffs)

1. (rare, archaic) A polemical response.
   • 1941, George Sampson, The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature, page 299.

     In Poetaster, or The Arraignment (printed 1602) Jonson gave a countercuff to his antagonists by ridiculing Marston as Crispinus and Dekker as Demetrius, and presenting himself as Horace.

   • 1950, George Gregory Smith, "Introduction", Elizabethan Critical Essays, Vol. 1, page xxix.

     Gosson's plea that Poetry makes men effeminate directly inspires Sidney's memorable countercuff that it, above all things, is the companion of camps⁶.

   • 1973, The Listener, Vol. 89, BBC, page 218.

     As a countercuff to visual media, he lays down the ‘general principle’ that arts which leave the imagination something to do excel those that minister to passive consumers.

   • 1982, E. A. J. Honigmann, Shakespeare's Impact on His Contemporaries, page 118.

     That could be Jonson's countercuff to Polixenes' speech ('The art itself is nature'), and to Mrs Taleporter's true ballads.

   • 2000, "Notes and News", The Gissing Journal, Vol. XXXVI, No. 3, page 38.

     William Levy has sent a countercuff which we dare not print, but if he publishes it in another journal, we promise to give the reference.