Place one on the counter (4)
I believe the answer is:
bari
'place' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'one on the counter' is the wordplay.
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the counter' becomes 'bar' (bar is a kind of counter).
'i' put after 'bar' is 'BARI'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bari that I've seen before include "Adriatic resort" , "Adriatic port" , "Adriatic seaport" .)