Emily Dickinson Lexicon

COUN-TER-BAL'ANCE, v.t. [counter and balance.]

To weigh against; to weigh against with an equal weight; to act against with equal power or effect; to countervail. A column of thirty inches of quicksilver, and a column of thirty two feet of water, counterbalance the weight of a like column of the whole atmosphere. The pleasures of sin never counterbalance the pain, misery and shame, which follow the commission of it.