centimeter
part of speech
noun (centimeter, centimeters; cm — American spelling)
meaning for a pupil
A centimeter is a small unit of length in the metric system, about the width of a fingernail. 100 centimeters make 1 meter. A meter is 100 centimeters. A centimeter is 10 millimeters. tree →
sense in the lessons
a unit of length for lines, sides of shapes and small objects; rulers show centimeters; in science, all measurements are metric; phrases «square centimeter» (cm²), «cubic centimeter» (cm³)
examples
- The pencil is 15 centimeters long. tree →
- A square has sides of 4 centimeters. tree →
- 2 meters is 200 centimeters. tree →
- Cut 30 centimeters off the ribbon. tree →
- Measure the leaf in centimeters. tree →
- A ruler is often 30 centimeters long. tree →
- The snail moved 5 centimeters in a minute. tree →
- She grew 6 centimeters this year. tree →
- The ant is less than 1 centimeter long. tree →
- The area of the card is 20 square centimeters. tree →
note
A unit, not a thing counted. Trap: change meters to centimeters (× 100) before adding. The short form is «cm» with no s and no dot. British spelling is «centimetre». 1 inch is about 2.5 centimeters.
In the corpora
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «centimeter» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.