centimeter
Americannoun
-
centimeters
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of centimeter
From the French word centimètre, dating back to 1795–1805. See centi-, meter 1
Explanation
In the metric system, a centimeter is a unit of measurement that's about one-third the size of an inch. There are approximately 30 centimeters in a foot. The word centimeter comes from the French centimètre, a combination of the Latin word for "hundred," centum, and the French mètre. A centimeter is one hundredth of a meter—in other words, there are one hundred centimeters in one meter. In just about every part of the world besides the U.S., this word is spelled centimetre.
Vocabulary lists containing centimeter
Measurement and Data
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: cent
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Florida's B.E.S.T. Roots: meter, metr
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Their size varies dramatically, from less than a centimeter long to more than 70 cm in Antarctica, where some species hunt smaller animals in deep ocean environments.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 25, 2026
They grow about a centimeter or two a year and by sampling cores at the millimeter scale, the team was able to develop windows of monthly temperature records scattered across the past millennium.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
According to Wu, the catalyst also operated for more than 1,000 hours at industry-level current densities of 1 and 2 amperes per square centimeter.
From Science Daily ● May 18, 2026
Veradermics also assessed hair count per square centimeter, finding that both dosing regimens increased hair count by at least 30 hairs per square centimeter, compared with 7.3 hairs per square centimeter for the placebo group.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 27, 2026
Everywhere I looked, every centimeter of floor space, was occupied.
From "An Elephant in the Garden" by Michael Morpurgo
Air regulations ban all blades with sharp points and typically blunt knives longer than six centimeters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
In 2009, an Iridium Communications satellite hit a nonfunctional Russian communications satellite, generating around 1,800 pieces of debris at least 10 centimeters in size.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026
It measures approximately 11 centimeters long, six centimeters in width, and about three centimeters thick.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026
According to the model, they can widen by about 3 to 10 centimeters each year.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026
I filled it with sand to a depth of 10 centimeters.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
