Definition of "meter"

meter

/ˈmitəɹ/

noun
countable and uncountable, plural meters
1. A device that measures things.
  1. A parking meter or similar device for collecting payment.
  2. (dated) One who metes or measures.
2. (American spelling) The base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), conceived as 1/10,000,000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, and now defined as the distance light will travel in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 seconds.
  Quotations
  Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.
  2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7
3. (American spelling) The overall rhythm of a song or poem; particularly, the number of beats in a measure or syllables in a line.
  1. (obsolete) A poem.
    Quotations
    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 Publyque Weale, and of the Newe Yle Called Utopia: […], London: […] [Steven Mierdman for] Abraham Vele, […]
4. (American spelling) A line above or below a hanging net, to which the net is attached in order to strengthen it.
verb
third-person singular simple present meters, present participle metering, simple past and past participle metered
1. To measure with a metering device.
2. To imprint a postage mark with a postage meter.
3. To regulate the flow of or to deliver in regulated amounts (usually of fluids but sometimes of other things such as anticipation or breath).

Definition of "meter"

meter

noun

Quotations

Quotations

verb