Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun See meter.
  • noun See meter.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun See meter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The basic unit of length in the International System of Units (SI: Système International d'Unités). It is equal to 39+47⁄127 (approximately 39.37) imperial inches.
  • verb UK, rare Alternative spelling of meter.
  • noun The rhythm or measure in verse and musical composition.
  • verb poetry, music To put into metrical form.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse
  • noun rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration
  • noun the basic unit of length adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites (approximately 1.094 yards)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French mètre, from Ancient Greek μέτρον (metron, "measure", "rule", "length", "size", "poetic metre")

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old English, from Latin metrum, from Ancient Greek See #Etymology 1

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Examples

  • In poetry we recognise at once how the obvious periodic recurrence of certain accented syllables, which we term metre, plays an important part ...

    About.com Painting 2009

  • Note the difference between (a) descriptions and examples of dipodic metre as a particular kind of metre – one that goes with, or can also be scanned as, long and rapid iambics – and (b) claims that English or English-language verse or metre is always “really” dipodic (rather than being always “really” iambic, as Frost thought, or always “really” nothing in particular, with metrical bases that may vary completely among possible groupings of poems).

    Dipodic Verse : A.E. Stallings : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation 2007

  • I think that last couplet's daring use of metre is the high point of the poem, but you can find the concluding four lines at McGonagall Online.

    Archive 2008-06-01 2008

  • A square metre is capable of holding an average family car off the ground.

    ‘Synthetic Gecko’ Material Paves Way for Real-Life Spiderman | Impact Lab 2006

  • But the following lines of the fragment evince, that the metre is Munsarih; hence, a clerical error must lurk somewhere in the second foot.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • So far Arabic metre is true to Nature: in impassioned speech the movement of language is iambic: we say “I will, I will,” not

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • The metre is a species of the Basít which, however, admits of considerable poetical license; this being according to Lane the usual “Weight,”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • Fun fact about the word metre: that spelling is used only for units of measurement.

    favour 2006

  • The personal vocabulary, the individual melody whose metre is one's biography, joins in that sound, with any luck, and the body moves like a walking, a waking island.

    Derek Walcott - Nobel Lecture 1997

  • Cereatly after myn entent, [102] and he ends by declaring that in spite of the impossibility of giving an exact rendering of the French in English metre, he has kept very closely to the original.

    Early Theories of Translation Flora Ross Amos

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