-meter

views updated May 18 2018

-meter • comb. form 1. in names of measuring instruments: thermometer.2. Prosody in nouns denoting lines of poetry with a specified number of feet or measures: hexameter.

-meter

views updated May 23 2018

-meter terminal el. in names of instruments for scientific measuring, the earliest of which (XVII) were adopted, partly through F., from modL. terms in -metrum (intended to repr. Gr. métron METRE1), e.g. barometer, thermometer, which are not, however, formed according to Gr. analogies. In XVIII and XIX hybrid formations came in, such as calorimeter, galvanometer, gasometer, taximeter. The corr. nouns of action end in -metry.

-meter

views updated May 14 2018

-meter combining form denoting an instrument for measuring.