counterclaim.

1. A claim put forward in opposition or response to another claim.

2. A claim made by a defendant against a claimant within or in connection with the same legal dispute.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a competing counterclaim
• assess a counterclaim

On the page

The essay evaluated the counterclaim before explaining why the records favored the original interpretation.

A counterclaim required support of its own rather than merely exploiting uncertainty in another account.

Usage notes

Primary category: analysis / argumentation / evidence. Forms: Singular counterclaim; plural counterclaims. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: evidence, argumentation, evaluation, qualification. Disciplines: reasoning, research, essay writing. Commonness: moderately common. Third-person singular: counterclaims.