liter
Pluralliters
UK spellinglitre
- 1The metric unit of fluid measure, equal to one cubic decimeter and written with the symbol L, l, or ℓ.
The soup recipe calls for half a liter of chicken stock.
The new aquarium holds two hundred liters, so filling it took most of the afternoon.
Note
The name goes back through French litre and Medieval Latin to Greek lítra, a Sicilian coin and measure of weight, which makes the liter a cousin of the lira, the livre and Libra, the scales. Of its three symbols, the capital L is the safest in print, because a lowercase l is easily misread as the digit 1. British spelling keeps the French order: litre.
- 2USLIT-ur/ˈlɪtɚ/UKLIT-uh/ˈlɪtə/Alternative form of litter.
Note
A spelling English has since dropped. In older writing it stood for litter in all its senses: straw bedding, a couch carried on poles, a stretcher, or a brood of young born at once. Today the spelling belongs to the American metric unit, so a modern reader meeting "a liter of piglets" will stumble. In your own writing, use litter.
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