pedometer

[puh-dom-i-ter]

noun

1. an instrument worn by a walker or runner for recording the number of steps taken, thereby showing approximately the distance traveled.

pedometer

/ pɪˈdɒmɪtə /

noun

1. a device containing a pivoted weight that records the number of steps taken in walking and hence the distance travelled

Other Word Forms

• pedometrical adjective
• pedometrically adverb
• pedometrist noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of pedometer¹

1723; < French pédomètre, equivalent to péd- (learned use of Latin ped- foot (stem of pēs ); pedi- ) + -omètre ( -o-, -meter )

Example Sentences

Participants wore waistband pedometers to track physical activity and underwent PET scans to measure amyloid-beta plaques and tau tangles in the brain.

Read more on Science Daily

Many people aim for 10,000 steps a day, but that number came from a Japanese pedometer advertisement - not science.

Read more on BBC

“The whole idea behind the 10,000 steps was actually a marketing campaign for a company in Japan that developed a pedometer,” said David Raichlen, professor of biological sciences and anthropology at USC.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

All participants, including those in the no exercise group, wore pedometers to measure daily steps.

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When a Japanese company invented the first pedometer in the 1960s, they called it the “10,000-step meter” because the Japanese character for 10,000 looks like a person walking.

Read more on Seattle Times