compensating, ppl. a.
[f. compensate v. + -ing2.]
a. That compensates.
| 1710 Norris Chr. Prud. viii. 369 Humility, a very compensating and atoning virtue. 1858 J. Martineau Stud. Chr. 334 The compensating sanctity of another. 1868 Browning Ring & Bk. vii. 1473, I trust In the compensating great God. 1878 J. W. Ebsworth Bagford Ball. (Ballad Soc.) 924 To make the parents give a compensating dowry. |
b. compensating-balance, compensating-pendulum: see compensation 3.
| 1819 Rees Cycl. s.v. Pendulum, Graham's mercurial pendulum..may be considered as the first compensating pendulum. 1874 H. Godfray Astron. iii. 42 They are compensating pendulums constructed by taking advantage of the unequal expansions of different substances. |
c. Electr. That effects compensation (cf. compensation 1 d).
| 1855 W. H. Preece Brit. Pat. 2608, At the same time that the line circuit is completed, a local circuit is also completed, which passes a compensating current through the paper..in the opposite direction. 1896 S. P. Thompson Dyn.-Electr. Mach. (ed. 5) xvi. 392 An iron structure, slotted..to receive the compensating conductors. Ibid. xvi. 395 Sayers' compensating winding with commutator coils. 1967 H. Cotton Adv. Electr. Technol. xxvii. 1086 The whole of the component Fc is neutralized by means of a compensating winding housed in slots in the pole faces. |
d. Psychol. (Cf. compensate v. 5.)
| 1914 [see compensate v. 5]. 1914 [see compensation 1 e]. 1927 Henderson & Gillespie Text-bk. Psychiatry x. 237 His compensating feeling of superiority went far beyond the bounds of reasonable possibility, and produced the grandiose ideas of his psychosis. 1944 L. G. Lowrey in J. McV. Hunt Personality & Behavior Disorders II. vi. xxvi. 815 Under ordinary circumstances, an individual is not able to develop a complete feeling of personal adequacy, or complete group security. But, for the average situation, there are compensating satisfactions..which offset..the frustrations. |
Hence compensatingly adv.
| 1876 Tinsley's Mag. XVIII. 50 The Giver of good gifts gives his gifts compensatingly. 1885 G. Meredith Diana II. xii. 286 He was compensatingly heterodox in his view of the Law's persecution of women. |