countercuffEtymologyFrom counter- + cuff (“blow, hit”), first used in the title of the 1589 polemical tract A Countercuffe giuen to Martin Iunior by the pseudonymous "venturuous, hardie, and renowned" Cavaliero Pasquill.nounA polemical response.“In Poetaster, or The Arraignment (printed 1602) Jonson gave a countercuff to his antagonists by ridiculing Marston as Crispinus and Dekker as Demetrius, and presenting himself as Horace.”