Other forms: counters, countered, countering
A counter is the long flat surface you stand at to be served: the bank counter, the counter in a chip shop, the kitchen counter you chop onions on. You put your shopping down on it, the person on the other side passes it over the scanner, and you pick it up again.
Counter is also the small flat disc you push around a board game, and a machine that keeps a tally — a step counter, a Geiger counter. Then there is the other counter altogether, which came into English by a different road and means against: you counter an argument, an offer, an attack, and the same piece sticks to the front of half the language in counter-attack, counterweight, counterproductive. A plan that runs counter to the rules works against them. Two shop phrases hang off the first sense and both are worth knowing — medicine sold over the counter needs no prescription, while anything sold under the counter is being sold in a way it should not be.
1nouncounterA long flat surface where you are served, or where you work in a kitchen.~40%
“He wiped the counter down after every customer.”
Patternon the counter · a kitchen / shop counter · counter top · behind the counter · over the counter
2verbrespondTo answer a move, an argument or an attack with one of your own.~51%
“She countered with an offer of her own.”
synonyms: respond, hit back
3nounsmallA small flat piece used in a board game.~2%
“Each player starts with ten counters.”
4noundeviceA device that counts things.~7%
“The counter on the door records everyone who comes in.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 177 sentences found in the wild and placed 124 of them on a sense (53 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Also accepted in games: countertop, worktop
COUNTer → you COUNT to ten leaning on it
Lean on the long flat top by the sink and count to ten while the water boils: that work surface is the counter.
hooks ontocount
Two separate words wearing one spelling. The shop counter is count plus -er, and it reaches back through Old French conteor to Medieval Latin computātōrium — the place where you compute, a table for counting money on. Its Latin ancestor computō also produced computer, so the counter in the bank and the computer behind it are the same word twice. The other counter, the one meaning against, is Latin contra, and it never had anything to do with counting.
Latin
computō
Medieval Latin
computātōrium
Old French
conteor
Middle English
countour
English, today
counter
Middle English countour, from Old French conteor (French comptoir), from Medieval Latin computātōrium, from Latin computō, equivalent to count + er. a doublet of cantore and computer and kontor.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA