Metre

How to spell metre

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce metre

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does metre mean?

1. nounThe base unit of length in the metric system, equal to about 39.4 inches.
2. nounThe regular rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed beats in a line of verse.
3. nounThe recurring pattern of beats that organises time in a piece of music.

Metre in a sentence

• The new kitchen counter measures just over one metre in width.

• The poem keeps a steady metre throughout each stanza.

• The waltz follows a three-beat metre that dancers find easy to feel.

• The new rug is just over one metre wide at its narrowest point.

• The tutor explained how the metre of the sonnet shapes its sound.

• The conductor stressed the importance of holding a strict metre during the passage.

Where does metre come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek metron, which simply meant 'a measure' or 'something used for measuring'. It passed into Latin as metrum and then into Old French as metre, where for centuries it referred chiefly to the measured rhythm of verse, the regular beat of poetry. English borrowed that poetic sense in the medieval period. The modern sense of a fixed unit of length is much younger: when French scientists devised the decimal measuring system in the 1790s they named their base unit the mètre, again from the idea of measuring, and English took it in with the spelling metre. The -re ending, kept in British and Canadian usage, mirrors the French original, while American English later reshaped it to 'meter'; the shared Greek root is also why a thermometer and a barometer carry the same '-meter' element.

How the word is built

• metr- (from Greek metron: a measure)
• -re (British noun ending preserving the French form)

British and American spelling

Metre is the British spelling. American English spells it meter.