Word.ws English Dictionary

count to ten

count to ten verb: an expression used to describe or recommend a process for pausing to regain one's composure when one is on the verge of losing one's temper.

Verb

count to ten (third-person singular simple present counts to ten, present participle counting to ten, simple past and past participle counted to ten)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) An expression used to describe or recommend a process for pausing to regain one's composure when one is on the verge of losing one's temper.
    • There is a temptation at this point to jump up and down, shouting about how often you have asked about that point. Instead, count to ten.1994 June 10, Kay Ewbank, “Computers: Confessions of a database designer”, in Independent, UK, retrieved 10 Jul 2015
    • Bok believes that media violence undermines . . . psychological mechanisms that allow people to bounce back and to count to 10 before they lash out.2001 June 24, John Cloud, “Of Arms And The Boy”, in Time, retrieved 10 Jul 2015

Forms of count to ten

third-person singular presentcounts to ten
present participlecounting to ten
past participlecounted to ten
pastcounted to ten
alternative formcount to 10

Words that rhyme with count to ten

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about count to ten

What does count to ten mean?
Count to ten means an expression used to describe or recommend a process for pausing to regain one's composure when one is on the verge of losing one's temper.
What part of speech is count to ten?
Count to ten is a verb.
What is the past tense of count to ten?
The past tense of count to ten is counted to ten.

Words near count to ten in the dictionary

  1. count the hours
  2. count to 10
  3. count to 3
  4. count to 5
  5. count to five
  6. count to ten
  7. count to three
  8. count towards
  9. count up
  10. count upon
  11. count-down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: count to ten (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-count to ten.wav.

Cite this entry: “count to ten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/count_to_ten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.