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counterchange

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Counterchange is a pattern where colours swap across a dividing line. A shield in counterchange.

What is gold on the black half is black on the gold half, and the eye reads it at once. Counterchange is a heraldic term and a design one, and it works because the mind supplies the join.

Original: Montrealais Vector: Wereon derivative work Hagman adding DE language, 3 October 2011 (SVG switch and optimization by Perhelion) עברית by Ori~ · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of counterchange

  1. 1nouncounterchangeA pattern where colours swap across a dividing line.C2

    “The tiles were laid in counterchange down the whole hall.”

counterchange is a pattern.

Where it comes from

Middle French contrechange, counter plus change; heralds used it to describe arms divided down the middle with the tinctures reversed.

  1. Middle French

    contrechange

  2. English, today

    counterchange

From Middle French contrechange (noun), contrechanger (verb).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word