Word.ws English Dictionary

counterpublic

/ˌkaʊntəˈpʌblɪk/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Ireland/ˌkaʊntəˈpʊblɪk/

counterpublic adjective: opposing or serving as a counterbalance to the dominant public.

Adjective

counterpublic (not comparable)

  1. Opposing or serving as a counterbalance to the dominant public.
    • An account of this sort provides a historicized moral foundation for a conception of counterpublic spheres more capable of undertaking a (decentered and multifaceted) critique of systematically distorted communication.2005, Andrew J. Pierce, Media Technology and Counterpublic Spheres

Noun

UK/ˈkaʊntəˌpʌblɪk/Ireland/ˈkaʊntəˌpʊblɪk/

counterpublic (plural counterpublics)

  1. A group that stands in opposion to the dominant public.
    • In other words, with this book they form a “counterpublic” to what they saw as a dominant, adult-controlled public sphere.2008, Patrick James Noonan, Creating a Counterpublic, page 5
    • It is incorrect to conceive of the black counterpublic as historically static or as ideologically cohesive at any given historical moment.2010, Melissa Victoria Harris-Lacewell, Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought, page 6

Forms of counterpublic

pluralcounterpublics

Origin of counterpublic

From counter- + public.

Questions about counterpublic

What does counterpublic mean?
Counterpublic means opposing or serving as a counterbalance to the dominant public.
What part of speech is counterpublic?
Counterpublic can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce counterpublic?
Counterpublic is pronounced /ˌkaʊntəˈpʌblɪk/ (UK).

Words near counterpublic in the dictionary

  1. counterprotests
  2. counterprove
  3. counterproved
  4. counterproves
  5. counterproving
  6. counterpublic
  7. counterpublics
  8. counterpull
  9. counterpulls
  10. counterpulsation
  11. counterpunch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: counterpublic (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-counterpublic1.wav.

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