Advice or recommendations given by someone, or the people who give legal advice in court; the verb form means to give advice or guidance to someone.
From Old French 'conseil' (advice, council), derived from Latin 'consilium' (deliberation, decision). The word evolved to mean both the advice itself and the person offering it, particularly in legal contexts.
The word 'counsel' can be both a noun and verb, which is why it survives while similar words like 'council' (a group) took different paths—English let this one do double duty rather than create a whole new word!
Complete word intelligence in one call. Free tier — 50 lookups/day.