Metricating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Changing measurements over to the metric system of units such as metres, litres and grams
2. Switching a country, industry or set of figures from imperial or customary units to metric ones
3. Adopting decimal-based metric units in place of older traditional systems of weights and measures

Etymology: Metricating is a form of "metricate", a verb built from "metric" and the suffix "-ate", which forms verbs from nouns and adjectives. The suffix passed into English through Latin "-atus" and ultimately descends from a much older ending in the Indo-European languages, so the verb is a modern assembly of ancient parts rather than a single old word. "Metric" itself comes from the French "métrique", which the system of measurement was named after, and "metre" ties back to Greek "metron", meaning "measure". The verb therefore carries the sense of converting something to the system built on that measure. Its meaning is simply to change a country, industry or set of measurements over to the metric system, so the word's story is one of a plain, deliberate coinage from familiar building blocks.

Synonyms: metricize