The word "countervail" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it as a verb meaning to oppose, counteract, or neutralize the effect of something (most often an opposing force). For example, you could say, "Our charity efforts have helped countervail the effects of poverty in this community."
The fragmentation of the extended family and community tended to isolate individuals and to countervail traditional values.
Initially, that took the form of a search for offensive nuclear operations that would enable the United States to prevail in a protracted war with the Soviet Union, rather than just countervail.
Against The Day (2006) deliriously posits utopian anarchists, renegade boffins and underworld explorers, to countervail with railroad barons and warring imperialists at the start of the 20th century.
Characteristic of this rhetorical strategy was her famous "Golden Speech" of 1601, when, in the face of bitter parliamentary opposition to royal monopolies, she promised reforms: I do assure you, there is no prince that loveth his subjects better, or whose love can countervail our love.
I do assure you, there is no prince that loveth his subjects better, or whose love can countervail our love.
One book I recently read all the way through, however, led me to think about the paradoxical way in which certain literary works can countervail this tendency by seeming to accommodate it.
In the grand scheme of things, the negative effect of extra mutations is likely to be countervailed by the positive effects of modern life: better nutrition, hygiene and sanitation, as well as better medical care.
Producers countervailed against retailers and retailers against distributors.
In an article written for the Encyclopédie, Turgot denied the sanctity of what he called foundations: "Public utility is the supreme law, and cannot be countervailed by a superstitious respect for what has been called the intents of the founders".
Modest overall cost increases would be countervailed by reductions in turnover and improvements in care quality.
A friend called him "a compass without a needle," and Chatwin himself wondered, "Why do I become restless after a month in a single place, unbearable after two?" Nothing prods the making of art like ambivalence, and Chatwin was lucky to have his roaming impulse countervailed by a strong "compulsion to return".
