also counter-factual, "expressing a 'what if;' expressing what has not happened but could have," by 1946, from counter- + factual.

mid-15c. (late 13c. in Anglo-French), "royal writ to determine by what warrant a person holds an office or franchise," a Medieval Latin legal phrase, literally "by what warrant," from quo "from, with, or by whom or what?," ablative of the interrogative pronoun quis "who?" (from PIE root *kwo-, stem of relative and interrogative pronouns). Also see warrant (n.).

see consequence. As the name of a round game, attested from 1796.

A game in which one player writes down an adjective, the second the name of a man, the third an adjective, the fourth the name of a woman, the fifth what he said, the sixth what she said, the seventh the consequence, etc., etc., no one seeing what the others have written. After all have written, the paper is read. [Century Dictionary]

"on the cheaper end of what is available," 1970, from down (adj.) + market (n.).

"of, pertaining to, or suggestive of modernism or what is modern," 1878, from modernist + -ic.

"mass destruction by fire of published material deemed obscene, corrupting, etc.," 1850, from book (n.) + verbal noun from burn (v.). As an adjective, it is attested from 1726 (in John Toland, who was a victim of it).

What an irreparable destruction of History, what a deplorable extinction of arts and inventions, what an unspeakable detriment to Learning, what a dishonor upon human understanding, has the cowardly proceeding of the ignorant or rather of the interested against unarm'd monuments at all times occasion'd! And yet this Book-burning and Letter-murdring humor, tho far from being commanded by Christ, has prevail'd in Christianity from the beginning .... [John Toland, "The History of the Druids," 1726]