Emily Dickinson Lexicon

ME'TER, n.² [Sax. meter; Fr. metre; L. metrum; G. μετρον, from μετρεω.]

1. Measure; verse; arrangement of poetical feet, or of long and short syllables in verse. Hexameter is a meter of six feet. This word is most improperly written metre. How very absurd to write the simple word in this manner, but in all its numerous compounds, meter, as in diameter, hexameter, thermometer, &c.
2. A French measure of length, equal to 39 37/100 English inches, the standard of linear measure, being the ten millionth part of the distance from the equator to the North Pole, as ascertained by actual measurement of an arc of the meridian. Lunier. D. Olmsted.