METRE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Metre

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/mˈitər/ Listen

noun

Metre, Meter n.

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."

2.

A poem. (Obs.)

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.

Metre n. See Meter.

See images of 'Metre'

Etymology of 'Metre'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Metre" Quotes from Famous Books

... that is half so sweet As the song of the wind in the rippling wheat; There is no metre that's half so fine As the lilt of the brook under rock and vine; And the loveliest lyric I ever heard Was the wildwood strain of a forest bird.— If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach My heart their beautiful parts of speech, And the ...

— Poems • Madison Cawein

... it grow where it will, and I guess we raise about the best kind, which is common sense, and I warn't to be put down with short metre, arter that fashion. So I tried the old man; sais I, 'Uncle,' sais I, 'if you will divorce the eatables from the drinkables that way, why not let the servants come and tend. It's monstrous onconvenient and ridikilous ...

— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... not perhaps inform the reader, that I had before written a Canto on the subject of this poem; but I was dissatisfied with the metre, and felt the necessity of some connecting idea that might give it a ...

— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... the way, when he visited Vallombrosa with Crabb Robinson in 1837, wrote an inferior poem there, in a rather common metre, in honour of Milton's ...

— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... the cave, took from his pocket a ball of string and a tape-measure, tied the string to the flint corner, fastened a pebble at the nineteenth metre and flung it toward the land side. The pebble at most reached the end of ...

— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

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