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
He showed the students how to run an orderly sit-in by filling lunch counter seats in shifts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 10, 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
A sign that said soldano’s announced the little lunch counter set under the porch in front of Pork Chop’s house.
From Full of Beans by Jennifer L. Holm
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.
