counter

noun

1. One who counts.

   “He's only 16 months, but is already a good counter – he can count to 100.”

2. A reckoner; someone who collects data by counting; an enumerator.

   “The basic idea is that the researcher conducting the transect (called the counter or enumerator) walks along a set path at certain intervals (hourly, daily, monthly, etc.) and tallies all instances of whatever is being surveyed.”

3. An object (now especially a small disc) used in counting or keeping count, or as a marker in games, etc.

   “He rolled a six on the dice, so moved his counter forward six spaces.”

4. A telltale; a contrivance attached to an engine, printing press, or other machine, for the purpose of counting the revolutions or the pulsations.
5. A variable, memory location, etc. whose contents are incremented to keep a count.

   “With a foreach block, you don't need to create an explicit counter variable.”

6. (Internet)A hit counter.
7. A table or board on which money is counted and over which business is transacted.

   “He put his money on the counter, and the shopkeeper put it in the till.”

8. A shop tabletop on which goods are examined, weighed or measured.
9. In a kitchen, a surface, often built into the wall and above a cabinet, designed to be used for food preparation.
10. In a bathroom, a surface, often built into the wall and above a cabinet, which holds the washbasin.
11. Any stone lying closer to the center than any of the opponent's stones.
12. (historical)The prison attached to a city court; a compter.

    “He remaynes prisonner in the Counter in Woodstrete in the hole, by the contagiousing wherof he is lyke to perishe”

13. A class of word used along with numbers to count objects and events, typically mass nouns. Although rare and optional in English (e.g. "20 head of cattle"), they are numerous and required in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
14. Something opposite or contrary to something else.
15. A proactive defensive hold or move in reaction to a hold or move by one's opponent.

    “Always know a counter to any hold you try against your opponent.”

16. The overhanging stern of a vessel above the waterline, below and somewhat forward of the stern proper.
17. The piece of a shoe or a boot around the heel of the foot (above the heel of the shoe/boot).

    “Seymour, sitting in an old corduroy armchair across the room, a cigarette going, wearing a blue shirt, gray slacks, moccasins with the counters broken down, a shaving cut on the side of his face […]”

18. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of contra Formerly used to designate any under part which served for contrast to a principal part, but now used as equivalent to countertenor.
19. The breast of a horse; that part of a horse between the shoulders and under the neck.
20. The enclosed or partly closed negative space of a glyph.
21. (obsolete)An encounter.

    “with kindly counter under mimic shade”

22. counterattack

    “Arsenal lacked urgency and penetration in a lazy, lacklustre opening half, sucked in by Forest's strategy of sitting back in blocks of defence waiting to hit them on the counter.”

adv

1. (not-comparable)Contrary, in opposition; in an opposite direction.

   “running counter to all the rules of virtue”

2. (not-comparable)In the wrong way; contrary to the right course.

   “a hound that runs counter”

   “She hated being pregnant; it ran counter to everything she wanted from her body”

   “which [darts] they never throw counter, but at the back of the flyer”

verb

1. To contradict, oppose.

   “I don't remember the conversation totally verbatim, yet I remember the tone — increasingly angry on my part, and flippant and snide on his. We countered back and forth at least three times.”

2. To return a blow while receiving one, as in boxing.

   “His left hand countered provokingly.”

3. To take action in response to; to respond.

   “David Cameron insists that his latest communications data bill is “vital to counter terrorism”. Yet terror is mayhem. It is no threat to freedom. That threat is from counter-terror, from ministers capitulating to securocrats.”

4. (obsolete, transitive)To encounter.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Contrary or opposing

   “His carrying a knife was counter to my plan.”

   “He could not compel Mrs. Proudie to say that the report was untrue; nor could he condescend to make counter hits at her about her own daughter, as his wife would have done.”

   “Innumerable facts attesting the counter principle.”

   “It was, however, most interesting work, and the moulders themselves were a decent crowd, never tired of making jokes about themselves such as the hoary one that moulders did not live long, which however ran counter to the other one that no germs could live in a foundry—the atmosphere was too foul.”

name

1. A surname.