Com`pen*sa"tion (?), n.
[L. compensatio a weighing, a balancing of accounts.]
1. The act or principle of
compensating. Emerson.
2. That which constitutes, or is regarded as,
an equivalent; that which makes good the lack
or variation of something else; that which compensates for loss or privation; amends; remuneration; recompense.
The parliament which dissolved the monastic foundations . . . vouchsafed not a word toward securing the slightest
compensation to the dispossessed owners.
Hallam.
No pecuniary compensation can possibly reward them.
Burke.
3.
(Law) (a)The extinction of debts of which two
persons are reciprocally
debtors by the credits of which they
are reciprocally
creditors; the payment of a debt by a credit of equal amount; a set-off. Bouvier.
Wharton. (b) A recompense or reward for
some loss or service. (c) An equivalent stipulated for in contracts for the sale of real estate, in which it is customary to provide that errors in description, etc., shall
not avoid, but shall be
the subject of compensation.
Compensation balance, or
Compensated balance, a kind of balance wheel for a timepiece. The rim is usually made of two different metals having different expansibility under
changes of temperature, so arranged as to
counteract each other and preserve uniformity of movement. -- Compensation pendulum. See Pendulum.
Syn. -- Recompense; reward; indemnification; consideration; requital; satisfaction; set-off.
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