Liter

How to spell liter

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce liter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does liter mean?

1. nounA metric unit of volume equal to one thousand cubic centimetres, used chiefly for liquids.

Liter in a sentence

• The recipe calls for half a liter of milk.

• She filled the bottle with exactly one liter of water.

Where does liter come from?

Language of origin: French

This word reaches English through French, where 'litre' was coined in 1795 for the new metric system, but its deeper root is the older French 'litron', an old measure of capacity for grain. That in turn traces back to the Late Latin 'litra' and the Greek 'litra', which named a unit of weight roughly equivalent to a pound and also a small silver coin. When the measure was adopted into English, British writers kept the French-style ending 'litre', while American spelling reformers, following Noah Webster's preference for endings that match their pronunciation, settled on 'liter'. The same '-er versus -re' split shaped the pair 'meter' and 'metre', so the two words tend to be remembered together. The spelling trap is simply that 'liter' looks French in origin yet ends the plain American way.

How the word is built

• litr- (from Greek litra, a unit of weight)
• -er (American noun ending mirroring French -re)

British and American spelling

Liter is the American spelling. British English spells it litre.