litre

pronunciation

How to pronounce litre in British English: UK [ˈliːtə(r)]word uk audio image

How to pronounce litre in American English: US [ˈliːtər] word us audio image

  • Noun:
    a metric unit of capacity equal to the volume of 1 kilogram of pure water at 4 degrees centigrade and 760 mm of mercury (or approximately 76 pints)

Word Origin

litre
litre: [19] Litre goes back to Greek lītrā, a term which denoted a Sicilian monetary unit. This found its way via medieval Latin litrā into French as litron, where it was used for a unit of capacity. By the 18th century it had rather fallen out of use, but in 1793 it was revived, in the form litre, as the name for the basic unit of capacity in the new metric system.It is first recorded in English in 1810. The Greek word was descended from an earlier, unrecorded *līthrā, which was borrowed into Latin as lībra ‘pound’. This is the source of various modern terms for units of weight, and hence of currency, including Italian lira and the now disused French livre, and it also lies behind the English symbol £ for ‘pound’.=> level, lira

Example

1. Seawater generally contains 33-37 grams of dissolved solids per litre .
2. Ethanol is corrosive and has less energy per litre than petrol and diesel .
3. Who will keep the car in the garage just because of an extra four cents a litre on petrol ?
4. Each litre was found to contain up to 40000 animals , many of them species new to science .
5. Farmers get 26 shillings a litre , more than twice what they were paid before the dairy opened its doors .

more: >How to Use "litre" with Example Sentences