metre: [14] Greek métron meant ‘measure’: it came ultimately from the Indo-European base *me- ‘measure’, which also produced English measure, immense, etc. English originally acquired it, via Latin metrum and Old French metre, in the sense ‘measured rhythmic pattern of verse’. Then at the end of the 18th century French mètre was designated as the standard measure of length in the new metric system, and English reborrowed it as metre. Meter ‘measuring device’ [19] is probably a nominalization of the element -meter, occurring in such compounds as galvanometer [19], gasometer [18], and pedometer [18], which itself went back via French -mètre or modern Latin -metrum to Greek métron. => commensurate, immense, measure, mete
