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metre

noun · verb

Simple meaning

The rhythm or measure in language and musical composition.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

meeter

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈmitɚ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. ukcanada

    The rhythm or measure in language (especially verse) and musical composition.

verb

  1. poetrymusic

    To put into metrical form.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The rhythm or measure in language (especially verse) and musical composition.

Used this way, metre is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a musical use: it is everyday language among musicians and listeners, and specialised outside that.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Music/performance
  • Arts writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

square metrecubic metremetre gaugeenglish metrevan metrestandard metre

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • metrologynounScientific field · specialist

    The scientific study of measurement.

  • metricnounDerived noun · specialist

    A function of a topological space that gives, for any two points in the space, a value equal to the distance between them.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • square metrenounCompound term

    A centare is 1/100th of an are.

  • cubic metrenounCompound term

    A metric unit of volume or capacity equal to 1000 liters.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: rhythm

meter

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.