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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

counterbore.

A cylindrical recess, typically machined at the mouth of a hole to admit a screw (such as a cap screw) so that the screw sits flush with a surface.

11 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun

  1. A cylindrical recess, typically machined at the mouth of a hole to admit a screw (such as a cap screw) so that the screw sits flush with a surface.

  2. The cutter used to cut such a recess. (Also used, at less depth, for spotfacing.)

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Italic *-teros Proto-Italic *komterosder. Proto-Italic *komterād Latin contrāder. Old French contre- Anglo-Norman countre-bor. Middle English counter- English counter- Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der. Proto-Germanic *burōną Proto-West Germanic *borōn Old English borian Middle English boren English bore English counterbore From counter- (“against”) + bore (“hole”).

verb

  1. To create such a cylindrical recess.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Italic *-teros Proto-Italic *komterosder. Proto-Italic *komterād Latin contrāder. Old French contre- Anglo-Norman countre-bor. Middle English counter- English counter- Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH-der. Proto-Germanic *burōną Proto-West Germanic *borōn Old English borian Middle English boren English bore English counterbore From counter- (“against”) + bore (“hole”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.