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meter |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.04 sec. |
meter, unit of measuremeter, abbr. m, fundamental unit of length in the metric system metric system, system of weights and measures planned in France and adopted there in 1799; it has since been adopted by most of the technologically developed countries of the world...... Click the link for more information. . The meter was originally defined as 1/10,000,000 of the distance between the equator and either pole; however, the original survey was inaccurate and the meter was later defined simply as the distance between two scratches on a bar made of a platinum-iridium alloy and kept at Sevres, France, near Paris. More recently, it has been defined as the distance light travels through a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. The meter is now the legal standard of length for most of the world, other standards, such as the yard, being defined in terms of the meter. meter, in musicmeter, in music, the division of a composition into units of equal time value called measures, and the subdivision of those measures into an underlying pattern of stresses or accents (see measure measure, in music, a metrical unit having a given number of beats, the first of which normally is accented, although the accent may be displaced by syncopation. Measures are separated on the staff by vertical lines called bars...... Click the link for more information. ). Meter is usually indicated by a time signature, a fraction whose numerator indicates the number of beats in a measure and whose denominator indicates the note value that is the unit of beating. The time signature may be changed at any point in the composition, and frequent changes of meter occur in much 20th-century music. In music of the 18th and 19th cent., however, the same meter is usually adhered to throughout a section or movement in a composition. See rhythm rhythm, the basic temporal element of music, concerned with duration and with stresses or accents whether irregular or organized into regular patternings. The formulation in the late 12th cent. ..... Click the link for more information. . For meter in poetry, see versification versification, principles of metrical practice in poetry. In different literatures poetic form is achieved in various ways; usually, however, a definite and predictable pattern is evident in the language. ..... Click the link for more information. ; for meter as a unit of measure, see metric system. The basic unit of the metric system (39.37 inches). A yard is about 9/10ths of a meter (0.9144 meter). See metric system.
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| It may be asked further of poetry, whether the meter and stanza structure are appropriate to the mood and thought and so handled as to bring out the emotion effectively; and whether the sound is adapted to the sense (for example, musical where the idea is of peace or quiet beauty). Halpin was pretty generally deprecated as an intellectual black sheep who was likely at any moment to disgrace the flock by bleating in meter. Her attention was only aroused again when Rodney raised his finger--a sign, she knew, that the meter was about to change. |
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meter
