lunch counter

noun

1. a counter, as in a store or restaurant, where light meals and snacks are served or are sold to be taken out.

2. a luncheonette.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lunch counter¹

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

“The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jet-like speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter,” King wrote.

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It’s not hard to feel outrage at the sight of sheriffs siccing police dogs on innocent protesters, or gangs of toughs beating Black college students for sitting at a lunch counter.

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Paschke sat at the packed lunch counter on a recent afternoon, waiting to pay.

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James M. Lawson Jr., a Methodist minister who became the teacher of the civil rights movement, training hundreds of youthful protesters in nonviolent tactics that made the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins a model for fighting racial inequality in the 1960s, has died.

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Lawson was a pivotal figure in some of the most important campaigns of the movement, including the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins, the first Freedom Ride and the social justice battles he led as pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in L.A.

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