equipoise

equipoise \EE-kwuh-poiz; EK-wuh-\, noun:

1. A state of being equally balanced; equilibrium; -- as of moral, political, or social interests or forces.
2. Counterbalance.

Example Quotes:

What matters is the poetry, and the truest readings of it "are those which are sensitive to the strangeness of Marvell's genius: its delicate equipoise, held between the sensual and the abstract, its refusal to treat experience too tidily, the uncanny tremor of implication that makes the poems' lucid surfaces shimmer with a sense of something undefined and undefinable just beneath."
-- James A. Winn, "Tremors of Implication", New York Times, July 9, 2000

I cannot see how the unequal representation which is given to masses on account of wealth becomes the means of preserving the equipoise and the tranquillity of the commonwealth.
-- Edmund Burke, "Reflections on The Revolution In France"

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Haunted Houses"

Example Sentences:

Reducing carbon emissions is one way to help restore the ecosystem's natural equipoise.
-- Brought to you by the 3rd Generation Prius

Equipoise is equi-, "equal" + poise, from Middle English poisen, "to balance, weigh," from Old French peser, pois-, ultimately from Latin pensare, "to weigh."