metre : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: metre	by the DICT Development Group
4 results for metre
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
metre n the basic unit of length adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites (approximately 1.094 yards) Synonym(s): meter, metre, m (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse Synonym(s): meter, metre, measure, beat, cadence rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration Synonym(s): meter, metre, time
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Meter \Me"ter\, Metre \Me"tre\, n. [OE. metre, F. m[8a]tre, L. metrum, fr. Gr. [?]; akin to Skr. m[be] to measure. See {Mete} to measure.] 1. Rhythmical arrangement of syllables or words into verses, stanzas, strophes, etc.; poetical measure, depending on number, quantity, and accent of syllables; rhythm; measure; verse; also, any specific rhythmical arrangements; as, the Horatian meters; a dactylic meter. The only strict antithesis to prose is meter. --Wordsworth. 2. A poem. [Obs.] --Robynson (More's Utopia). 3. A measure of length, equal to 39.37 English inches, the standard of linear measure in the metric system of weights and measures. It was intended to be, and is very nearly, the ten millionth part of the distance from the equator to the north pole, as ascertained by actual measurement of an arc of a meridian. See {Metric system}, under {Metric}. {Common meter} (Hymnol.), four iambic verses, or lines, making a stanza, the first and third having each four feet, and the second and fourth each three feet; -- usually indicated by the initials C.M. {Long meter} (Hymnol.), iambic verses or lines of four feet each, four verses usually making a stanza; -- commonly indicated by the initials L. M. {Short meter} (Hymnol.), iambic verses or lines, the first, second, and fourth having each three feet, and the third four feet. The stanza usually consists of four lines, but is sometimes doubled. Short meter is indicated by the initials S. M.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Metre \Me"tre\, n. See {Meter}.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
metre (US "meter") The fundamental {SI} unit of length. From 1889 to 1960, the metre was defined to be the distance between two scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. This replaced an earlier definition as 10^-7 times the distance between the North Pole and the Equator along a meridian through Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact value of the circumference of the Earth. From 1960 to 1984 it was defined to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of krypton-86 propagating in a vacuum. It is now defined as the length of the path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second. (1998-02-07)