/kaʊnt/, /kuːnt/
OriginFrom Middle English counten, borrowed from Anglo-Norman conter, from Old French conter (“add up; tell a story”), from Latin computō (“I compute”). In this sense, displaced native Old English tellan, whence Modern English tell. Doublet of compute.
Compare typologically reckon, Russian счита́ть (sčitátʹ), счита́ться (sčitátʹsja); the semantic evolution to Mongolian санах (sanax).
- intransitiveTo recite numbers in sequence.
“Can you count to a hundred?”
“The psychiatrist asked her to count down from a hundred by sevens.”
- transitiveTo determine the number of (objects in a group).
“Count the number of apples in the bag and write down the number on the spreadsheet.”
“The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;
The person having the greatest number of v”
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
- intransitiveTo amount to, to number in total.
“They counted thirty, crowded in a space
Which left scarce room for motion or exertion; […]”
- figuratively, intransitiveTo be of significance; to matter; to be considered (as something); to be included (of something).
“Your views don’t count here.”
“It does count if you cheat with someone when you’re drunk.”
- figuratively, intransitiveTo be an example of something: often followed by as and an indefinite noun.
“Apples count as a type of fruit.”
“This excellent man […] counted among the best and wisest of English statesmen.”
“Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.[…]But as ”
- transitiveTo consider something as an example of something or as having some quality; to account, to regard as.
“He counts himself a hero after saving the cat from the river.”
“I count you as more than a friend.”
“The entertainment we haue had of him,
Is far from villanie or ſeruitude,
And might in noble mindes be counted princely.”
- transitiveTo reckon in, to include in consideration.
“They walked for three days, not counting the time spent resting.”
- intransitive, obsoleteTo take account or note (of), to care (for).
“[…]to make her faire, that no man counts of her beauty.”
- obsolete, transitiveTo recount, to tell.
- UK, intransitive, obsoleteTo plead orally; to argue a matter in court; to recite a count.
- The act of counting or tallying a quantity.
“Give the chairs a quick count to check if we have enough.”
“Breathe out slowly through your mouth for a count of five.”
- The result of a tally that reveals the number of items in a set; a quantity counted.
“By the official count, there are something like thirteen hundred species of birds in the Amazon, but Cohn-Haft thinks there are actually a good many more, because people have relied too much on featur”
- A countdown.
- A distinct and separate charge in an indictment or complaint.
“Zou, who was living in Elephant and Castle, south-east London, was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim. He was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, ”
“Anthony Williams (32), of Langford Road, Peterborough, was arrested and charged with ten counts of attempted murder, one count of ABH (Actual Bodily Harm), and one count of possession of a bladed arti”
- The number of balls and strikes, respectively, on a batter's in-progress plate appearance.
“He has a 3–2 count with the bases loaded.”
- obsoleteAn object of interest or account; value; estimation.
“When he was readie to his steede to mount / Vnto his way, which now was all his care and count.”
- slangCunt (the taboo swear word)
“That count deserves a punishment.”
- The male ruler of a county.
- A nobleman holding a rank intermediate between dukes and barons.
- Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Tanaecia. Other butterflies in this genus are called earls and viscounts.
- not-comparableCountable.
“For example, the term abuse would require at least one definition for the uncount usage ‘invective, insulting language’, and another for the count usage ‘an item of invective, an insult’.”
- not-comparableUsed to show the amount of like items in a package.
Formscounts(present, singular, third-person) · counting(participle, present) · counted(participle, past) · counted(past) · count(infinitive) · count(first-person, present, singular) · counted(first-person, past, singular) · count(present, second-person, singular) · countest(archaic, present, second-person, singular) · counted(past, second-person, singular) · countedst(archaic, past, second-person, singular) · counteth(archaic, present, singular, third-person) · counted(past, singular, third-person) · count(plural, present) · counted(past, plural) · count(present, subjunctive) · counted(past, subjunctive) · count(imperative, present) · -(imperative, past) · counts(plural)