Dictionary

counterlife en · NOUN

Etymology

From counter- + life.

Meanings

1. A counterfactual life; a life other than the one actually lived.
   • More often, they simply struggle with their own counterlives. 1991, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish year book, 1991 - Volume 91, →ISBN, page 68:
   • Introducing difference into the flow of time, it suggested the possibility of counterlives in the present. 2004, Stranded in the Present:
   • He is hailed by postmodernists for his fictive propositions and counterlives. 2005, Jay L. Halio, Turning Up the Flame: Philip Roth's Later Novels, →ISBN, page 125:
   • “Russell is an alter ego,” [Jay] McInerney says. “I decided early on that he was going to live what Philip Roth called the ‘counterlife’, the life that I could've lived if I had stayed married to the same woman and taken more of a conventional path career-wise.” 2026 April 4, Jonathan Derbyshire, “Lunch with the FT: Jay McInerney”, in FT Weekend (Life & Arts section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 3:

Forms