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Meter is a metric measurement slightly longer than a yard; thus, a 100-meter dash might take you a second longer than a 100-yard dash. But the word has a different sense in music, where people aren't separated by whether they use the metric system. For a musician, the meter is the regular background rhythm, expressed by the "time signature" written at the beginning of a piece or section: 2/2, 2/4, 3/8, 4/4, 6/8, etc. Within a meter, you can create rhythms that range from the simple to the complex. So, for example, "America the Beautiful" is in 4/4 meter (or "4/4 time"), but so are most of the rhythmically complex songs written by Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach, or Stevie Wonder. In ordinary conversation, though, most people use "rhythm" to include meter and everything that's built on top of it. In poetry, meter has much the same meaning; however, poetic meters aren't named with numbers but instead with traditional Greek and Latin terms such as iambic and dactylic.
Synonyms
Examples of meter in a Sentence
George Ramsay, CNN, 11 Apr. 2024
Between 50 and 300 meters (m) in depth, the Bisbee is underlain by approximately two kms thick of the same Paleozoic carbonate formations that host the 110 MT Hermosa-Taylor zinc-lead-silver deposit of South32 located 60 km southwest of Tombstone.
—Kansas City Star, 10 Apr. 2024
During a training exercise in southern Ukraine in May 2023, a drone pilot maneuvered a flier to a height of 100 meters before dropping a dummy anti-tank grenade on to a pile of tires.
—IEEE Spectrum, 10 Apr. 2024
As if that weren’t enough to pack into this miniscule case, the Altiplano Ultimate Concept Tourbillon also offers up 20 meters of water resistance.
—Allen Farmelo, Robb Report, 9 Apr. 2024
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was also expected to attend, the family said, but had to cancel after a Russian missile landed a few hundreds meters from him during a visit to Odesa that day, killing five people.
—Constant Méheut Oksana Parafeniuk, New York Times, 9 Apr. 2024
Russia declared an emergency in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan after the Ural River, Europe’s third longest river, swelled several meters in hours on Friday, and burst through a dam embankment in the city of Orsk.
—Reuters, NBC News, 9 Apr. 2024
Reducing just 5 micrograms per cubic meter (µg/m3) of fine particle pollution can decrease the risk of low birthweight by 15%.
—Jeremy Ney, TIME, 9 Apr. 2024
Members get all of our content (including the magazine), no paywalls or content meters, an advertising-minimal experience, and unique access to our writers and editors (through conference calls, social media groups, and more).
—The Editors, National Review, 29 Mar. 2024
Sarah Scott, Parents, 20 Feb. 2024
Around downtown San Jose, there are a number of areas with marked and often metered parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk.
—John Woolfolk, The Mercury News, 6 Feb. 2024
This kind of tracking and analytics of police officers’ exact movements could allow the app to do something other predictive policing tools have not: meter out where patrol assignments occur to reduce instances of over-policing.
—WIRED, 27 Sep. 2023
As a consequence, the lawsuit alleges, the DWP underestimated outdoor water use, overcharging customers whose outdoor use wasn’t metered separately.
—Jon Healey, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2023
In May the regulatory body issued its first power consumption notice, asking Texas residents to meter their energy usage and avoid using large machinery such as washing machines during prime windows over the course of a particularly hot weekend.
—Dan Carson, Chron, 8 June 2022
All taxis are metered at set rates established by the government.
—Skye Sherman, Travel + Leisure, 7 Apr. 2023
Free parking is available in the Tower 155 Garage and metered parking on the street.
—Phillip Valys, Sun Sentinel, 31 Mar. 2023
According to its website, the water utility directly serves 125,000 residential, commercial, industrial, and master-metered customers in Pulaski, Saline and Grant counties.
—Daniel McFadin, Arkansas Online, 12 Mar. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'meter.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Noun (1)
Middle English metre, borrowed from Anglo-French & Latin; Anglo-French, borrowed from Latin metrum, borrowed from Greek métron "measure, space measured, (in plural) proportions, poetic meter," perhaps going back to Indo-European *mh1-tro-, zero-grade derivative of a verbal base *meh1- "measure" — more at measure entry 1
Note: The word meter in the sense "poetic meter" is attested twice in Old English as a borrowing from Latin, but there is no continuity between this use and occurrence in later Middle English.
Noun (2)
Middle English, from meten "to mete entry 1" + -er -er entry 2
Noun (3)
borrowed from French mètre, borrowed from Greek métron "measure" — more at meter entry 1
Noun (4)
probably originally, as short for gas-meter "instrument for measuring the quantity of gas passing through an outlet," to be identified with meter entry 2; later uses appear to be extracted from compounds with -meter, generalized to refer to any measuring device
Verb
derivative of meter entry 4
Noun combining form
borrowed from French & New Latin; French -mètre, borrowed from New Latin -meter, borrowed from Greek -metron (as in hodómetron "instrument for measuring distance, odometer"), from métron "measure, instrument for measuring" — more at meter entry 1
Note: The earliest of such New Latin compounds is perhaps altimeter altimeter.
Noun (1)
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a
Noun (2)
14th century, in the meaning defined above
Noun (3)
1797, in the meaning defined above
Noun (4)
1815, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Verb
1878, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Phrases Containing meter
Dictionary Entries Near meter
Cite this Entry
“Meter.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meter. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024.
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Kids Definition
meter
1 of 3 noun
meter
2 of 3 nounmeter
3 of 3 noun
Medical Definition
meter
1 of 2 nounmeter
2 of 2 noun
More from Merriam-Webster on meter
Nglish: Translation of meter for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of meter for Arabic Speakers
Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about meter
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