cm

«cm» in Mova's school dictionary: short for centimeter, a small unit of length — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

abbreviation (cm — centimeter or centimetre); noun when read out (centimetre, centimetres; casual: cents, cm's)

meaning for a pupil

1) Cm is short for centimeter, a small unit of length. A meter has 100 centimeters. tree →

2) A centimeter is about the width of your little fingernail. tree →

3) (casual) People say «c-m» or «centimetres» out loud, or «a few cm»; in a hurry «cm» may be written «cms» (wrong). tree →

4) (casual) In texts «cm» can also mean «call me», so look at the context. tree →

5) (formal) Exams and science write «cm», «cm²» (square centimetres), «cm³» (cubic centimetres) and «to the nearest centimetre». tree →

sense in the lessons

maths: a unit of length; cm² for area, cm³ for volume; rulers marked in cm and mm; science: measuring plants, heights of pupils; everyday life: the size of a book or a phone, how tall you are; in casual talk «grew like 3 cm», «it's a few cm too short»; in rough talk «a bloody centimetre too short, typical»; in the exam voice «a segment of length 12 cm», «correct to the nearest centimetre», «the area in cm²»

examples

• The line is 12 cm long. tree →
• The square has sides of 5 cm. tree →
• 1 m = 100 cm. tree →
• The area is 24 square cm. tree →
• My pencil is 15 cm long. tree →
• The plant grew 3 cm in a week. tree →
• A centimeter has 10 millimeters. tree →
• She is 140 cm tall. tree →
• I grew like 3 cm since summer! tree →
• The shelf is a bloody centimetre too short for the book. tree →
• A rectangle of length 8 cm and breadth 3 cm is given. Compute its area in cm². tree →
• cm when u get home (in a text: call me). tree →

note

A unit, not a thing counted. Trap: cm and m differ by 100; cm² is area; cm³ is volume. Write «cm» with no full stop and no s: 5 cm, not 5 cms. 1 cm = 10 mm. «breadth» in an exam means width. In a text, «cm» may mean «call me», with no number in it.

In the corpora

• Just 15 cm of moving water can knock a person off their feet, and 30 cm can float a car.
• You skate only on ice checked by adults or on a marked rink; the ice must be at least 10 cm thick.
• A child uses a booster seat until the adult belt fits, usually around 145 to 150 cm or 4 feet 9 inches tall.
• Plates move about 2-10 cm a year, roughly as fast as your fingernails grow.
• Today satellites measure plate movement directly: GPS stations show Europe and North America moving apart about 2.5 cm a year.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «cm» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.