Meaning

3 senses

  1. A claim, hypothesis, or other belief that is contrary to the facts.

  2. A hypothetical state of the world, used to assess the impact of an action.

  3. A conditional statement in which the conditional clause is false.

Origin

From counter- + factual.

From counter- + factual.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: counterfactuals
Singularcounterfactual
Pluralcounterfactuals

regular

Synonyms

6 synonyms
misconceptionB2misunderstandingB1counterfactmisapprehensionfalsehoodmisinformation

Word family

4 related words
Relatedalternate historyalternative factwhat ifwhat-if

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
counterbalancecounterclockwisecounterfeitcounterfeiter

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

counterfactual — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto