“Meters” or “Metres”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 12 prefer “meters” and 0 prefer “metres”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	meters	metres	Preference
United States	99	1	“meters”
United Kingdom	61	39	“meters”
India	79	21	“meters”
Philippines	99	1	“meters”
Canada	84	16	“meters”
Australia	55	45	“meters”
Liberia	100	0	“meters”
Ireland	65	35	“meters”
New Zealand	63	37	“meters”
Jamaica	79	21	“meters”
Trinidad & Tobago	79	21	“meters”
Guyana	83	17	“meters”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“meters”

He competed in the 10,000 meters at the 2000 and 2004…
…Guatemala in the women's 200 meters backstroke, the second time she…
…between + 20 and 30 meters.
…and producing 350 million cubic meters of lava.
…fifth in the men's 400 meters at the 1924 Summer Olympics.
After 100 meters Medrano crosses the bridge, the…
…Lias Stone and 44 cubic meters of lime concrete used to…
"Canoeing: Men's Kayak Pairs 1000 Meters".
"You are Two Point Three Meters from Your Destination," published in…
…of 2,986 feet / 910 meters at its confluence with Deep…

“metres”

400 metres – 51.00 s (2007)
…at an altitude of 427 metres and covers an area of…
The men's 800 metres event at the 2001 IAAF…
…has personal bests of 2.29 metres outdoors (2016) and 2.30 metres…
…Leggera took the lead 400 metres from the finish and steadily…
…silver medal in the 10,000 metres, behind Bekele, and the silver…
400 metres – 48.90 (Eaubonne 2013)
…into its mouth, swims several metres to a rock which it…
Anapaestic metres are used frequently by Plautus…
…more than a few hundred metres at a time.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

Too much to remember?

Looking for a tool that handles this for you wherever you write?

Install Sapling Try the grammar checker