Noun

(en noun)

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.

(curling) Any stone lying closer to the center than any of the opponent's stones.

A table or board on which money is counted and over which business is transacted; a shop tabletop on which goods are examined, weighed or measured.

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

One who counts, or reckons up; a reckoner.

* He's only 16 months, but is already a good counter - he can count to 100.

A telltale; a contrivance attached to an engine, printing press, or other machine, for the purpose of counting the revolutions or the pulsations.

(historical) The prison attached to a city court; a Counter.

(grammar) 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.

In a kitchen, a surface, often built into the wall and above a cabinet, whereon various food preparations take place.

(wrestling) 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.

(computing, programming) A variable, memory location, etc. whose contents are incremented to keep a count.

(computing, Internet) A hit counter.

Noun

(en noun)

(nautical) The overhanging stern of a vessel above the waterline.

(by extension) The piece of a shoe or a boot around the heel of the foot (above the heel of the shoe/boot).

* 1959 , , Seymour: An Introduction :

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 [...].

Noun

(en noun)

(obsolete) An encounter.

* Spenser

with kindly counter under mimic shade

(nautical) The after part of a vessel's body, from the water line to the stern, below and somewhat forward of the stern proper.

(music) Formerly used to designate any under part which served for contrast to a principal part, but now used as equivalent to countertenor.

The breast, or that part of a horse between the shoulders and under the neck.

The back leather or heel part of a boot.

Noun

(en noun)

(Christianity, historical) One of the daily offices of prayer of the Western Church, associated with the early morning (typically 6 a.m.).

* Spenser

Early and late it rung, at evening and at prime .

(obsolete) The early morning.

* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , I.vi:

They all as glad, as birdes of ioyous Prime

The earliest stage of something.

* Hooker

in the very prime of the world

* Waller

Hope waits upon the flowery prime .

The most active, thriving, or successful stage or period.

* Eustace

cut off in their prime

* Dryden

the prime of youth

* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=April 29, author=Nathan Rabin

, title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992) , passage=And it’s daunting because each segment has to tell a full, complete story in something like six minutes while doing justice to revered source material and including the non-stop laughs and genius gags that characterized The Simpsons in its god-like prime .}}

* 1965 , (Bob Dylan), (Like a Rolling Stone)

Once upon a time you dressed so fine. You threw the bums a dime in your prime , didn’t you?

The chief or best individual or part.

* Jonathan Swift

Give him always of the prime .

(music) The first note or tone of a musical scale.

(fencing) The first defensive position, with the sword hand held at head height, and the tip of the sword at head height.

(algebra, number theory) A prime element of a mathematical structure, particularly a prime number.

* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Sarah Glaz

, title= Ode to Prime Numbers , volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles, attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’' cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving ' primes .}}

(card games) A four-card hand containing one card of each suit in the game of primero; the opposite of a flush in poker.

(backgammon) Six consecutive blocks, which prevent the opponent's pieces from passing.

The symbol

(chemistry, obsolete) Any number expressing the combining weight or equivalent of any particular element; so called because these numbers were respectively reduced to their lowest relative terms on the fixed standard of hydrogen as 1.

An inch, as composed of twelve seconds in the duodecimal system.