count on
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]count on (third-person singular simple present counts on, present participle counting on, simple past and past participle counted on)
- (transitive) To rely on, trust, or expect.
- Don't count on being able to get back into the building after 5pm.
- Can we count on you to help out?
- 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 8, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volumes (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
- He was brewer to the palace; and it was apprehended that the government counted on his voice.
- 1999, Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor:
- The first time you meet that someone special, you can count on them one day being dead and in the ground.
- 2001, Builder's Guide to Accounting:
- Or perhaps something unusual occurred in the current period that you can't count on to repeat itself.
- 2009, “Going green: Young talent cuts costs, builds continuity”, in USA Today:
- "Hopefully you can count on them for a long period of time. Quite frankly, not often do you give those players up."
- 2022 June 23, Francine Hirsch, “Russia is counting on the media to spread propaganda about show trials”, in The Washington Post[1], retrieved 14 December 2022:
- The trial will be targeted at Russians as well as an international audience — and the organizers will be counting on extensive coverage in the world press.
Usage notes
[edit]- This is an inseparable phrasal verb, i.e. on functions as a preposition, not as an adverb.
Synonyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to rely on, trust, or expect
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