Dictionary

countergift en · NOUN

Etymology

From counter- + gift.

Meanings

1. A gift given in response to a gift received.
   • Whether the advice contained in this Envoy was or was not followed, is of no importance; but it certainly was the occasion of a counter-gift of a memorandum-book, possibly too fine a one for use […] 1838, Charles Armitage Brown, Shakespeare’s Autobiographical Poems, page 78:
   • At micro-levels the measuring of equivalence for matching gift and counter-gift may be free, but for important transactions the community eventually comes to help its members by imposing agreed techniques for calculating requital. 2007, Mary Douglas, chapter 10, in Thinking in Circles, page 135:
   • And each gift in this enormous complex trails its own wake of counter-gifts and obligations to be fulfilled at a future date. 1929, Bronisław Malinowski, chapter 6, in The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia, page 160:

Forms