Counter-attack

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An attack made in response to an attack by the opponents

    "Liverpool should really have taken the lead on 33 minutes. A lightning quick counter-attack was led by Jordan Henderson down the right."

Verb
  1. 1
    To attack in response to an attack by opponents.

    "Taking a full-page advertisement in the New York Times, the New Haven counter-attacked with vigour."

Synonyms

All synonyms
counter-offensive

Example

More examples

"Tom lost possession, and the opposition launched a counter-attack."

Etymology

From counter- + attack.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.