metric

Meanings

Adjective

• Of or relating to the metric system of measurement.
• Of or relating to the meter of a piece of music.
• Of or relating to distance.

Noun

• A measure for something; a means of deriving a quantitative measurement or approximation for otherwise qualitative phenomena (especially used in engineering).
• A function for the measurement of the "distance" between two points in some metric space: it is a real-valued function d(x,y) between points x and y satisfying the following properties: (1) "non-negativity": $d(x,y)\; \backslash ge\; 0$, (2) "identity of indiscernibles": $d(x,y)\; =\; 0\; \backslash mbox\{\; iff\; \}\; x=y$, (3) "symmetry": $d(x,y)\; =\; d(y,x)$, and (4) "triangle inequality": $d(x,y)\; \backslash le\; d(x,z)\; +\; d(z,y)$.
• A metric tensor.
• Abbreviation of metric system

Verb

• To measure or analyse statistical data concerning the quality or effectiveness of a process.

Related

Similar words

• measure
• distance function

Narrower meaning words

• Euclidean metric, Hausdorff metric, spacetime metric, uniform metric, ultrametric

Origin

• From French métrique (1864), from New Latin metricus ("pertaining to the system based on the meter"), from metrum; see meter.