Meter

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈmiːtÉ™(ɹ)/
• US IPA: /ˈmitəɹ/
• Rhymes: -iːtÉ™(r)

Alternative forms

• metre (Commonwealth English for noun senses 4 to 7, rare for other senses)

Origin

From French mètre, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (metron, "measure")

Full definition of meter

Noun

1. (always meter) A device that measures things.
2. A parking meter.
3. (dated) One who metes or measures.
   a labouring coal-meter
4. (chiefly US, elsewhere metre) The base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), conceived of as 1/10000000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, and now defined as the distance light will travel in a vacuum in 1/299792458 second.
• 2013, William E. Conner, An Acoustic Arms Race, Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.
5. (chiefly US, elsewhere metre) (music) An increment of music; the overall rhythm; particularly, the number of beats in a measure.
6. (chiefly US, elsewhere metre, prosody) The rhythm pattern in a poem.
7. (chiefly US, elsewhere metre) A line above or below a hanging net, to which the net is attached in order to strengthen it.
8. (obsolete) A poem.

Derived terms

Verb

1. to measure with a metering device.
2. to imprint a postage mark with a postage meter

Anagrams

• metre
• remet
• retem