counterfire
counterfire noun: the firing of weapons in response.
Noun
counterfire (countable and uncountable, plural counterfires)
- The firing of weapons in response.
- The Nationalist Defense Ministry claimed Communist guns on the mainland coast were silenced by effective counterfire. By Nationalist count, the Reds fired 444 shells, of which 162 hit Matsu Island, 112 Peikantang Island and 170 landed in the sea.1959 May 18, “Red Chinese Open Firing on Matsus”, in The Washington Post and Times Herald, volume 82, number 164, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 1, column 5
- The second attack vehicle had difficulty navigating around the debris from the first attack, and was met with defensive counterfire by security personnel assigned to the hotel.2007, John W. Ellis, Police Analysis and Planning for Homicide Bombings, page 171
- A smaller fire lit at some distance from a wildfire, in order to develop a firebreak.
Verb
counterfire (third-person singular simple present counterfires, present participle counterfiring, simple past and past participle counterfired)
Forms of counterfire
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | counterfires |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | counterfires |
| present participle | counterfiring |
| past participle | counterfired |
| past | counterfired |
Origin of counterfire
From counter- + fire.
Questions about counterfire
- What does counterfire mean?
- Counterfire means the firing of weapons in response.
- What part of speech is counterfire?
- Counterfire can be a noun or a verb.
- What is the plural of counterfire?
- The plural of counterfire is counterfires.
Words near counterfire in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: counterfire (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:
Cite this entry: “counterfire.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/counterfire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.