neutralize

neutralize, counteract, negative are comparable when they mean to make something inoperative or ineffective usually by means of an opposite force, influence, or effect.

Neutralize implies an equalizing, making ineffectual or inoperative, or nullifying by an opposing force, power, agency, or effect

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a quinine that can neutralize his venom; it is called courage— Da vis

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neutralize the effects of propaganda with counterpropaganda so as to render the international environment favorable— Latham

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our esteem for facts has not neutralized in us all religiousness— James

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Counteract may imply merely neutralizing or counterbalancing; it is often used in situations in which the good and bad or the beneficial and deleterious are opposed

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these two principles have often sufficed, even when counteracted by great public calamities and by bad institutions, to carry civilization rapidly forward— Macaulay

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frequently visited the Choctaws, in an effort to counteract the influence of the French and to win them to an alliance with the English— Ghent

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Negative implies an annulling, a contradicting, a making futile, useless, or ineffective, or a vitiating by an opposing force, effect, or trend

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as if the wind might blow it over, thus negativing the idea of solidity— Bennett

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it is only in literature that the paradoxical and even mutually negativing anecdotes in the history of a human heart can be juxtaposed and annealed by art into verisimilitude and credibility— Faulkner

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Analogous words: offset, countervail, counterbalance, counterpoise (see COMPENSATE): defeat, overcome, subdue, *conquer