[In senses 1, 2, f. COUNTER a. or adv.: of senses 3–4 the history is uncertain, and perhaps they ought to be treated separately.]
1. Hunting. The opposite direction to the course taken by the game; see COUNTER adv. 1.
1575. Turberv., Venerie, 121. The huntesmen … must take good heede that theyr houndes take not the counter by cause the harte is fledde backwardes. Ibid., 205. Or els hunteth backe himself by the counter of hir footing.
1674. N. Cox, Gentl. Recreat., I. (1706), 87. That the Hounds may not think it the Counter she came first.
2. The contrary, opposite.
1871. Tennyson, Last Tourn., 80. Whatsoever his own knights have sworn My knights have sworn the counter to it.
II. 3. That part of a horse’s breast which lies between the shoulders and under the neck.
1678. trans. Gaya’s Arms War, I. 24–5. [They] present the Pike to the height of the Horses Counters.
1727–31. Bailey, vol. II. Counter is that part of the fore-hand of a horse, that lies between the shoulder and under the neck.
1805. Scott, Last Minstrel, I. xxix. For he was barbed from counter to tail, And the rider was armed complete in mail.
1841. Lever, C. O’Malley, I. xlv. 243. The poor beast … had been killed by a bullet in the counter.
1851. Mayne Reid, Scalp Hunt., xxix. His throat, counter, and shoulders.
4. Naut. The curved part of the stern of a ship.
‘The counter above extends from the gun-deck line, or lower ribbon moulding of the cabin windows, to the water-line (or seat of water); the lower counter is arched below that line, and constitutes the hollow run’ (Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.).
1626. Capt. Smith, Accid. Yng. Sea-men, 11. The round-house, the counters, the wayst. Ibid. (1627), Seaman’s Gram., ii. 11. The hollow arching betwixt the lower part of the Gallery and the Transome, is called the lower Counter; the vpper Counter is from the Gallery to the arch of the round house.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Counter, an arch … whose upper-part is terminated by the bottom of the stern, and the lower-part by the wing-transom and buttock.
1805. in Nicolas, Disp. Nelson, VII. 195, note. Several shot-holes in the hull—one in the under counter 31/2 feet under.
1864. Athenæum, No. 1926. 410/3. The explosion of the torpedo under her counter.
1883. W. Clark Russell, Sea Queen, III. xi. 243. When her bows lifted and she dipped her counter in the black water.
b. Comb. Counter-rail, -timber (see quots.).
1815. Falconer’s Dict. Marine, Countertimbers, short timbers in the stern, put in … for … strengthening the counter.
c. 1850. Rudim. Navig. (Weale), 112. Counter-rails. The ornamental rails athwart the stern into which the counters finish.
1867. in Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk.
