Definition of "counterfactual" [counterfactual]

• Running contrary to the facts: "Cold war historiography vividly illustrates how the selection of the counterfactual question to be asked generally anticipates the desired answer” ( Timothy Garton Ash). (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "This is what we call counterfactual history or speculation."
• "The story is an exercise in counterfactual genre criticism in which a professor tells his class about the fictitious history and non-existent antecedent of Poe's famous story "The Masque of the Red Death" (1842)."
• "The counterfactual is extremely difficult to test reliably given the small number of data points. we should be lowering the tax on labor and raising the tax on capital"