How to Use metric system in a Sentence

metric system

noun
  • The United States may have retired the metric system, but the rest of the world hasn't.
    Rena Behar, Travel + Leisure, 6 May 2022
  • Where the metric system is in use, horse races are in meters.
    Kelly Ward, The Courier-Journal, 5 June 2018
  • Measure for Measure to rid the country of the metric system.
    Gerard Baker, WSJ, 24 Oct. 2017
  • Condorcet’s ideals live on, however, in the way most of the world measures things: the metric system.
    National Geographic, 10 Sep. 2020
  • At press time, only three of the world's countries don't use the metric system: the United States, Myanmar and Liberia.
    Kat Eschner, Smithsonian, 27 July 2017
  • Most students were raised in the metric system, and suddenly need to think in pounds and cups, not kilograms and liters.
    Anya Van Wagtendonk, Philly.com, 12 July 2018
  • The metric system, which makes far more sense than the imperial system, works in tens.
    Elise Hannum, Vulture, 17 Dec. 2021
  • In America, which abjures the metric system, the rule is six feet, or 1.8 metres.
    The Economist, 20 June 2020
  • Every country in the world, with the exception of Myanmar, Liberia, and the United States, uses the metric system.
    Christopher Muther, BostonGlobe.com, 8 Feb. 2018
  • But Britain has moved toward the metric system for most purposes in recent decades.
    Palko Karasz, New York Times, 27 July 2019
  • The metric system's governing body has added some new terms to help describe massive amounts of data.
    Mike Snider, USA TODAY, 22 Nov. 2022
  • His last attempt was short-lived and perhaps best remembered for his proposal to switch the United States to the metric system.
    Lisa Lerer, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2020
  • An investigation found the root of the problem: The spacecraft was using the metric system while commands from the ground were sent in English units (pounds-seconds).
    April Margulies, Forbes, 2 Sep. 2021
  • Its oddness was highlighted only after the world began to adopt the metric system.
    Phil Jaekl, Time, 1 June 2021
  • So, in June of 1799, two platinum standards—a meter rod and a kilogram cylinder—were forged, marking the creation of the decimal metric system.
    Robert Rathe, National Geographic, 20 May 2019
  • By the mid-20th century, the metric system dominated the globe.
    Phil Jaekl, Time, 1 June 2021
  • Calm down, weather lovers, the National Weather Service in Portland is not moving to the metric system.
    Lizzy Acker, OregonLive.com, 1 Apr. 2018
  • Like most of the world, the U.K. has used the metric system for more than half a century, though people there never stopped ordering pints in the pub and measuring themselves in feet and inches.
    David Meyer, Fortune, 17 Sep. 2021
  • Australians also use the metric system, so distances and speeds are measured in kilometers, as opposed to miles.
    Krisanne Fordham, Condé Nast Traveler, 2 Mar. 2018
  • Recipes from the United States will normally use imperial units (ounces and pounds), while recipes from outside of the United States will usually use the metric system (grams and kilograms).
    Eva Bleyer, Good Housekeeping, 22 Aug. 2022
  • To make dishes like struffoli, biscotti, castagnole and torta pasqualina, the students view the recipe in both Italian and English and learn about the different metric systems.
    Allison Bagley, Houston Chronicle, 3 July 2018
  • Commonly referred to as the metric system, this system has for centuries used physical guides as to what exactly, say, a kilogram was.
    David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 3 June 2019
  • This date is meant to celebrate the International System of Units, otherwise known as the metric system.
    James Panero, WSJ, 19 May 2019
  • Meanwhile, though resisted in the land of its invention, the metric system gained adherents in other countries.
    National Geographic, 10 Sep. 2020
  • This two-pack offers clear measuring with a classic two-sided design, one side for inches the other side uses the metric system in centimeters.
    Popular Science, 8 Jan. 2021
  • America remains an outlier holding on to the old imperial, or U.S. customary system, of pounds and acres when the rest of the world has largely shifted to the metric system of kilograms and hectares.
    Lucy Craymer, WSJ, 18 Dec. 2018
  • When no one wanted to lose a fight compared to their co-stars, so Vin Diesel devised a complicated metric system to ensure fair fight scene time, with numerical values for each head butt, kick and body slam.
    Andrew Nusca, Fortune, 2 Aug. 2019
  • Local dialects were effectively banned, and use of the new, highly rational metric system was required.
    Christopher Beha, Harper’s Magazine , 18 Jan. 2022
  • Scientists use the metric system, which measures distance in meters (m) and velocity in meters per second (m/s).
    Ben Finio, Scientific American, 26 Dec. 2019
  • As a scientist who publishes in the scientific literature, the standard expectation is to use the metric system and the Celsius or even Kelvin scales.
    Marshall Shepherd, Forbes, 9 Nov. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'metric system.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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