TOP

Definition of metre noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

metre

noun
 
/ˈmiːtə(r)/
 
/ˈmiːtər/
(US English meter)
jump to other results
  1. [countable]
    (abbreviation m)
    a unit for measuring length; a hundred centimetres
    • a 50-metre swimming pool
    • Every few metres the cat stopped and turned to look at me.
    • Over 3 700 square metres of office space is available.
    • The huge sculpture is made of 500 cubic metres of ice.
    • an athlete running at 10 metres per second
    Topics Maths and measurementa1
  2. [countable, uncountable]
    (abbreviation m)
    used in the name of races
    • She came second in the 200 metres.
    • the 4 × 100 metre(s) relay
  3. [uncountable, countable] the arrangement of strong and weak stresses in lines of poetry that produces the rhythm; a particular example of this
    • She knows a lot about verse metre.
    • poems in a variety of metres
    • the hexameter, the epic metre of Homer
    Topics Literature and writingc2
  4. Word Originsenses 1 to 2 late 18th cent.: from French mètre, from Greek metron ‘measure’.sense 3 Old English, reinforced in Middle English by Old French metre, from Latin metrum, from Greek metron ‘measure’.
See metre in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English

Other results

All matches
trait
noun
 
 
From the Word list
Oxford 5000
B2
Oxford Learner's Dictionaries Word of the Day