meter

from The Century Dictionary.

• To measure by means of a meter; test by the use of a meter.
• noun One who measures; a measurer: as, a coal-meter; a land-meter.
• noun That which measures, or is used for measuring; specifically, an instrument that records or indicates automatically the quantity, force, or pressure of a fluid passing through it or actuating it: used in composition, as in gas-meter, water-meter (see these words), or alone when the fluid to be measured, as gas or water, is understood.
• noun In fishing, one of the two reinforcing ropes of a seine or gill-net, of which one is attached to the upper edge and carries the floats, and the other to the lower edge and bears the weights or sinkers
• noun In photography, an instrument for determining the time of exposure.
• noun The fundamental unit of length of the French metrical system.
• noun Rhythm in language; rhythmic language as measurable by prosodic times or uttered syllables; more specifically, arrangement of language in a succession of rhythmic movements, readily appreciable as such by the ear; verse, as opposed to prose. Meter in this sense is the subject-matter of the science of metrics
• noun Measured verse or rhythmic language; rhythmic language as determined by or divided into fixed measures.
• noun In music, the division of a composition into parts of equal time-value and of similar essential rhythmic structure.
• noun In Eng. hymnology, a pattern of versification, including the structure of the prosodical feet used, the grouping of those feet into lines, and the grouping of lines into stanzas or strophes, popularly called verses. See foot and versification.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun A line above or below a hanging net, to which the net is attached in order to strengthen it.
• noun One who, or that which, metes or measures. See coal-meter.
• noun An instrument for measuring, and usually for recording automatically, the quantity measured.
• noun a gas meter having measuring chambers, with flexible walls, which expand and contract like bellows and measure the gas by filling and emptying.
• noun a gas meter in which the revolution of a chambered drum in water measures the gas passing through it.
• noun 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
• noun obsolete A poem.
• noun 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.
• noun (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.
• noun (Hymnol.) iambic verses or lines of four feet each, four verses usually making a stanza; -- commonly indicated by the initials L. M.
• noun (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 Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A device that measures things.
• noun A parking meter.
• noun The base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), conceived of as 1/10000000 of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator, and now defined as the distance light will travel in a vacuum in 1/299792458 second.
• noun (music) an increment of music; the overall rhythm; particularly, the number of beats in a measure.
• noun prosody The rhythm pattern in a poem.
• verb To measure with a metering device.
• verb To imprint a postage mark with a postage meter

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the basic unit of length adopted under the Systeme International d'Unites (approximately 1.094 yards)
• noun rhythm as given by division into parts of equal duration
• verb measure with a meter
• noun any of various measuring instruments for measuring a quantity
• noun (prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse
• verb stamp with a meter indicating the postage