millimeter

[ mil-uh-mee-ter ]

noun

1. a unit of length equal to one thousandth of a meter and equivalent to 0.03937 inch. : mm

millimeter

/ mĭl′ə-mē′tər /

1. A unit of length in the metric system equal to 0.001 meter.
2. See Table at measurement

Other Words From

• mil·li·met·ric [mil-, uh, -, me, -trik], adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of millimeter¹

First recorded in 1800–10; from French millimètre; milli-, meter ¹

Example Sentences

Last season, sales of skis with widths between 101 and 110 millimeters underfoot grew 10 percent, faster than any other category, according to data provided by the NPD Group.

From Outside Online

All-mountain powder skis typically feature waist widths between 100 and 110 millimeters underfoot.

From Outside Online

Eventually, though, traditional satellite systems will reach an accuracy limit—probably around the millimeter level.

From MIT Technology Review

As positioning technology advances to the millimeter level and beyond, the limits of its use will be defined more by our creativity and the legal or ethical bounds we set than by the performance of the technology itself.

From MIT Technology Review

In experiments, the robotic grabber clutched a piece of wire one-half of a millimeter in diameter.

From Science News

The image above was constructed with longer-wavelength light, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

From The Daily Beast

My prayers are answered, and Mitchum stops one millimeter from my head.

From The Daily Beast

Two bubbles less than a millimeter apart might have radically different temperature, density, and other important properties.

From The Daily Beast

Why go patrolling with a nine-millimeter pistol if you are not angrily hankering to use it?

From The Daily Beast

The ship now shifts slightly with the rise and fall of the low Mediterranean tides, moving about a millimeter an hour.

From The Daily Beast

The normal number of leukocytes varies from 5000 to 10,000 per cubic millimeter of blood.

From Project Gutenberg

The nine-millimeter rifles were said to be large enough for nearly all purposes, but not reassuring in extremely close quarters.

From Project Gutenberg

The famous seventy-five-millimeter gun was again proving itself the most terrible of mobile field weapons.

From Project Gutenberg

Measuring with a millimeter scale, we find on the map for the diameter of the crater Copernicus, 2.1 millimeters.

From Project Gutenberg

Millimeter by millimeter again, I teased it free of her pocket, stopping twice when she snuffled and twitched.

From Project Gutenberg