cm

cm — noun

1. a short written form of the metric unit 'centimetre', used to express length — e

1.nounA2
Definition

a short written form of the metric unit 'centimetre', used to express length — equal to one hundredth of a metre

Example

The shelf Priya bought for her kitchen was exactly 90 cm wide.

number + cm for measurement

At the clinic Diego measured 110 cm, which is tall for his age.

Common collocations
  • cm long
  • cm wide
  • cm tall
  • cm deep
  • cm of rain
  • cm of snow
  • per cm
  • every (few) cm
Synonyms
  • centimetre

    the full written or spoken form; cm is used in written measurements, while 'centimetre' appears in narrative text and speech

Grammar Patterns

number + cm

cm of + noun

Usage Note

Written without a capital letter and without a period. The form does not change for plural: write '5 cm', not '5 cms'. Typically follows a number with no space or a thin space. Very common in recipes, furniture dimensions, height measurements, maps, and rainfall/snowfall data.

Common Mistakes

The desk is 120 cms long.
The desk is 120 cm long.
cm stays the same whether the number is singular or plural.
It was 5 CM of rain.
It was 5 cm of rain.
unit abbreviations are kept in lowercase, even after a full stop.
Measure 15 c.m. of fabric.
Measure 15 cm of fabric.
no periods between the letters.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

cm is the written abbreviation for the metric length unit 'centimetre' (British spelling) or 'centimeter' (American spelling). All three refer to the same unit of length — one hundredth of a metre. The abbreviation cm appears in written measurements, labels on rulers and packaging, scientific notation, and tables, where brevity matters. The full forms appear in spoken language ('the table is about ten centimetres wide'), formal prose, and when the unit is first introduced in a text ('measured in centimetres'). In Taiwan, the colloquial term 公分 (gōngfēn) is used in speech, while cm is standard in writing.

centimetre ↗centimetercm ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • cm by cm
  • every few cm
  • per square cm

Prepositions

Etymology

LatinGreekFrenchEnglish

cm is an abbreviation formed from the Latin-derived prefix 'centi-' (meaning 'hundred', from Latin 'centum') and 'metre' (from Greek 'metron', meaning 'measure'). The abbreviation follows the international standard for metric symbols: lowercase for units named after ordinary words, no period.