Also 7 equipoyse, æquipoise. [f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To serve as an equipoise to; to counterbalance.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., II. 105. A Cylinder of that weight does just æquipoise the Elastic power of the Ayr without.
1755. B. Martin, Mag. Arts & Sci., 264. I see they just equipoize each other.
1816. Southey, in Q. Rev., XVI. 228. An opposition, which, till then, had nearly equipoised the weight of the ministry.
1856. Landor, Ant. & Octav., V. 39. No Praise Can equipoise his virtues.
1868. R. Buchanan, Trag. Dramas Hist., Wallace, I. vi. On yonder bier Lies one whose worth to equipoise thy master … Were gossamer to gold.
2. To place or hold in equipoise; to hold (the mind) in suspense.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Poems, Actor. A whole minute equipois’d he stands.
1804. Med. Jrnl., XII. 343. Regulating, and equipoising the various functions of the animal economy.
1823. D’Israeli, Cur. Lit. (1858), III. 355. He had to equipoise the opposite interests of the Catholics and the Evangelists.
1887. J. W. Graham, Neæra, II. xxiv. 361. Suspicion and dissimulation equipoised the Imperial mind [Tiberius].
† 3. intr. To balance with. Obs. rare–1.
1647. Ward, Simp. Cobler (ed. 3), 74.
| There Peace will goe to War, | |
| And Silence make a noise: | |
| Where upper things will not | |
| With nether equipoyse. |
Hence Equipoised ppl. a., Equipoising vbl. sb.
a. 1685. Lett. to Dk. York, in 5th Coll. Papers Pres. Affairs (1688), 38. I am a dutiful and hearty Lover of Monarchy … when establish’d on such an Equi-pois’d Basis of Wisdom as ours is.
1832. Carlyle, Jas. Carlyle, 45. Mallets and irons hung in two equipoised masses over the shoulder.
1854. Scoffern, in Orr’s Circ. Sc., Chem. 6. The beam of an equipoised balance.
c. 1790. Imison, Sch. Arts, I. 166. By its [the air’s pressure] … equipoising … 29 and a half inches of mercury.
