Word.ws English Dictionary

meter

Syllables: me·ter/ˈmitəɹ/[ˈmiɾɚ]

meter noun: a device that measures things. Also the US standard spelling of metre.

Noun (1)

meter (countable and uncountable, plural meters)

  1. A device that measures things.
    1. A parking meter or similar device for collecting payment.
      • gas meter
  2. (dated) One who metes or measures.
    • a labouring coal-meter
  3. (US) A line above or below a hanging net, to which the net is attached in order to strengthen it.

Verb

meter (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).

Noun (2)

meter (countable and uncountable, plural meters)

  1. (obsolete) A poem.
    • A meter of […]berses in the Utopian tongue1551, 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...

Also used as

meter is also the US standard spelling of metre.

meter meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

meter in Hindi

मीटर, मीटर करना

meter in Marathi

मीटर

meter in Urdu

میٹر

meter in Bengali

মিটার, মিটার-এর
More languagesFewer languages
meter in Telugu
మీటర్, మీటరు
meter in Malayalam
മീറ്റർ
meter in Kannada
ಮೀಟರ್
meter in Gujarati
મીટર
meter in Odia
ମିଟର
meter in Nepali
मिटर, मीटर
meter in Arabic
مِقْيَاس miqyās, وَزْن wazn, بَحْر baḥr
meter in Malay
meter
meter in Indonesian
meteran, penghitung
meter in Persian
اندازهگیر andâze-gir, سنجه sanje, وزن vazn, بحر bahr
meter in Thai
มิเตอร์ mí-dtə̂ə
meter in Vietnamese
cái đo, người đo

Examples of meter in a sentence

  • The older boy won, even though his opponent had been granted a handicap of five meters.
  • The flight of terraces extended up fifty meters from the base.
  • The front runner was thirty meters ahead of her nearest competitor.

All 40 example sentences with meter

Forms of meter

Noun
pluralmeters
Verb
third-person singular presentmeters
present participlemetering
past participlemetered
pastmetered

Past tense of meter: metered

Plural of meter: meters

Origin of meter

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”).

Borrowed from French mètre, itself borrowed from Latin metrum, borrowed from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron).

From Middle English meter, metre, from Old English meter and Old French metre; both from Latin metrum, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (métron).

Words formed from meter

Phrases with meter

38 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with meter

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about meter

What does meter mean?
Meter means a device that measures things.
What is meter in Hindi?
Meter in Hindi is मीटर, मीटर करना. See Meter meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is meter?
Meter can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce meter?
Meter is pronounced /ˈmitəɹ/.
What is the plural of meter?
The plural of meter is meters.

Words near meter in the dictionary

  1. metepa
  2. metepimera
  3. metepimeron
  4. metepimerons
  5. metepisternal
  6. meter
  7. meter attendant
  8. meter attendants
  9. meter maid
  10. meter maids
  11. meter stamp

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: meter (page history and authors); meter (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); meter (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-meter.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-meter.wav.

Cite this entry: “meter.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/meter. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.