counterculture

/ˈkaʊn.tə(ɹ)ˌkʌl.t͡ʃə(ɹ)/

counterculture noun: any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to Western culture.

Noun

counterculture (countable and uncountable, plural countercultures)

Any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to Western culture.
- I suspect that just about everything we still consider valuable and interesting from the Victorian decades will turn out to have belonged to the Victorian counterculture.1985, Morse Peckham, Romanticism and Ideology
- Seneca's literary contemporary, Petronius, reflected the " seamy " side of city life by representing Roman "counterculture" in his racy and imaginative farce the Satyricon.2005, Robert B. Kebric, Roman People, McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages

Proper noun

counterculture

A cultural movement most prominent in the 1960s and 1970s, associated with peace, free love and opposition to commercialism; the hippie movement.
- The concert was a cultural happening for members of the counterculture in the St. Louis area.1971 August 16, W. Thomas Stewart, “A record turnout for The Who at Mississippi River Festival”, in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- The sexual revolution has wreaked havoc on the American family: increasing rates of divorce, illegitimacy, and single-parent families. The glorification of recreational drug use, from which the wealthy and middle class have only recently begun to recoil, has contributed to the emergence of a...1994, Richard Nixon, “America Beyond Peace”, in Beyond Peace, New York: Random House, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 235

counterculture meaning in Malayalam, Punjabi, Tagalog and Arabic

counterculture in Malayalam

any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to western culture: പ്രതിസംസ്കാരം pratisaṁskāraṁ

counterculture in Punjabi

any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to western culture: ਕਾਉਂਟਰਕਲਚਰ kāuṇṭarkalacar

counterculture in Tagalog

any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to western culture: kontrakultura

counterculture in Arabic

any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to western culture: ثقافة مضادة taqafa muddada

More languagesFewer languages

counterculture in Malay: budaya tentangan
counterculture in Indonesian: pemberontakan budaya
counterculture in Persian: پادفرهنگ pâdfarhang
counterculture in Thai: วัฒนธรรมต่อต้าน wát-tá-ná-tam dtòr dtâan

Examples of counterculture in a sentence

The Silent Generation produced such counterculture leaders as John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Huey Newton and Abbie Hoffman.
Counterculture expert James Riley delves into the darkness of the Sixties to sort fact from psychedelic fiction.
This was the spark that gave the counterculture its funky fire.

All 17 example sentences with counterculture

Forms of counterculture

plural	countercultures
alternative form	counter-culture
alternative form	counter culture

Origin of counterculture

From counter- + culture.

Words formed from counterculture

Questions about counterculture

What does counterculture mean?: Counterculture means any culture whose values and lifestyles are opposed to those of the established mainstream culture, especially to Western culture.
What is counterculture in Malayalam?: Counterculture in Malayalam is പ്രതിസംസ്കാരം (pratisaṁskāraṁ). See Counterculture meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is counterculture?: Counterculture can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce counterculture?: Counterculture is pronounced /ˈkaʊn.tə(ɹ)ˌkʌl.t͡ʃə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of counterculture?: The plural of counterculture is countercultures.

Words near counterculture in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: counterculture (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-counterculture.wav.

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