lunch counter
Americannoun
-
a counter, as in a store or restaurant, where light meals and snacks are served or are sold to be taken out.
-
a luncheonette.
Etymology
Origin of lunch counter
First recorded in 1865–70
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When he got in, he worked in his brother’s restaurants—a lunch counter, then a pizzeria—to pay his tuition.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026
Paschke sat at the packed lunch counter on a recent afternoon, waiting to pay.
From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 1, 2024
Manuguid also came to the lunch counter for the first time in 2010.
From Seattle Times • Dec. 7, 2023
As a youth, he organized a lunch counter sit-in to protest segregation in his hometown of Wichita, Kansas.
From Washington Times • Apr. 5, 2023
I hadn’t seen at all what Meryl Lee was doing on Valentine’s Day, while we were sipping Cokes at the lunch counter at Woolworth’s.
From "The Wednesday Wars" by Gary D. Schmidt
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
