Meter

How to spell meter

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce meter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does meter mean?

1. nounAn instrument that measures and records the quantity of something used, such as gas, water, or parking time.
2. nounThe base metric unit of length, equal to roughly thirty-nine inches.
3. nounThe structured rhythm or measured pattern of beats in poetry or music.

Meter in a sentence

• The engineer photographed the gas meter before the tenants moved in.

• The swimming pool was exactly fifty meter from end to end.

• The poem keeps a steady meter throughout its four stanzas.

• She fed coins into the parking meter outside the office.

• He bought one more meter of fabric to finish the curtains.

• The composer shifted the meter from three beats to four in the chorus.

Where does meter come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek metron, which simply meant 'a measure' or 'that by which something is measured'. The Greek term passed into Latin as metrum and then into French as metre, carrying the ideas of measured length and the measured beat of verse. English absorbed these meanings, and from the eighteenth century onward the spelling 'meter' became the standard American form for both the unit of length and any instrument that measures. The combining form '-meter', seen in thermometer, speedometer, and barometer, is the very same Greek root doing its measuring work inside longer words. In British and Canadian writing the unit of length kept the French-looking spelling 'metre', while the measuring-device sense settled on 'meter' everywhere, which is exactly why the same speaker may write 'parking meter' but 'two metres tall'.

How the word is built

• meter (from Greek metron: measure)
• agent/instrument sense

British and American spelling

Meter is the American spelling. British English spells it metre.