meter
A device that measures things.
Noun
- A device that measures things.
-
A parking meter or similar device for collecting payment.
- gas meter
-
- One who metes or measures.
- a labouring coal-meter
- A line above or below a hanging net, to which the net is attached in order to strengthen it.
Origin
From Middle English metere (“one who measures, measurer”), perhaps (with change in suffix) from Old English metend (“one who measures or metes”), equivalent to mete (“to measure”) + -er. The transference from "person who measures" to "device that measures" was probably assisted by association with -meter, as in barometer, etc. Cognate with Scots mettar, metter (“meter, measurer”), Saterland Frisian Meter, Meeter (“measurer, measuring device, gauge”), West Frisian mjitter (“measurer”), Dutch meter (“measurer, gauge”), German Low German Meter (“measuring device, gauge”), German Messer (“measurer, measuring device, gauge”), Swedish mätare (“measurer”).
Forms
Related
Derived
Ampère meter anglemeter bimeter coal-meter cover meter digital meter drift meter dry meter electricity meter electric meter E-meter energy meter exposure meter feed the meter flowmeter gas meter gas meter bandit glossmeter gravity meter light meter meterable meterage meter attendant meterful
Noun US, alt of
- US standard spelling of metre (“the rhythm or measure in language”).
- A poem.
- A meter of […]berses in the Utopian tongue - 1551, Thomas More, “(please specify the Internet Archive page)”, in Raphe Robynson [i.e., Ralph Robinson], transl., A Fruteful, and Pleasaunt Worke of the Best State of a...
Origin
From Middle English meter, metre, from Old English meter and Old French metre; both from Latin metrum, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron).
Forms
Derived
asymmetrical meter asymmetric meter bimeter common meter compound meter duple meter hendecameter heptameter heroic meter hexameter hypermeter long meter meterless metric metrical mismeter monometer octameter pentameter polymeter quintuple meter sexameter short meter simple meter
Noun US, alt of
- US standard spelling of metre (“a unit of measure”).
- No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That’s why a recent arboreal discovery nearly 20 feet (6...
Origin
Borrowed from French mètre, itself borrowed from Latin metrum, borrowed from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron).
Forms
Derived
1000 meter 1,000 meter 1000-meter 100-meter dash 100 meter dash atto-meter attometer centimeter cubic meter decimeter exameter femtometer gigameter kilogram-meter kilometer linear meter megameter metergram meter-kilogramme-second meter-kilogram-second meter stick meter-tonne-second meter-ton-second meter-wide
Verb
- To measure with a metering device.
- To imprint a postage mark with a postage meter.
- To regulate the flow of or to deliver in regulated amounts (usually of fluids but sometimes of other things such as anticipation or breath).