Illustrative Context

I counted the stones; there were five stones.

Target Sense

• The most generic transitive verb for counting (up) objects.
• This term should be applicable (as in the illustrative context) to the act of counting up objects one by one, starting from one and stepping up to the total.
• Avoid terms for more complex calculating, reckoning, or working out by some form of mathematical procedure, beyond simply counting up one by one. E.g. in German the target lexeme is zählen, not rechnen.
• Select the basic term for counting actual things in concrete cases — i.e. avoid terms specifically for reciting a numeral sequence in the abstract.
• Avoid technical and mathematical terms like enumerate.