In linguistics, measure words are words (or morphemes) that are used in combination with a numeral to indicate an amount of some noun. They denote a unit or measurement and are used with nouns that are not countable. For instance, in English, mud is a mass noun and thus one cannot say *"three muds", but one can say "three drops of mud", "three pails of mud", etc. In these examples, drops and pails function as measure words.
Informally, the term measure word is also sometimes used to refer to numeral classifiers, which are used with nouns that are countable in some languages. For instance, in English no extra word is needed when saying "three people", but in many East Asian languages a numeral classifier is added, just as a measure word is added for uncountable nouns in English. While many linguists maintain a distinction between measure words and numeral classifiers, the terms are sometimes used interchangeably. (For instance, materials for teaching Chinese as a second language generally refer to Chinese classifiers as "measure words".)
Most measure words in English correspond to units of measurement or containers, and are themselves count nouns rather than grammatical particles:
- one litre of water
- three cups of coffee
- four kernels of corn, three ears of corn, two bushels of corn
Famous quotes containing the words measure and/or word:
“Unless a group of workers know their work is under surveillance, that they are being rated as fairly as human beings, with the fallibility that goes with human judgment, can rate them, and that at least an attempt is made to measure their worth to an organization in relative terms, they are likely to sink back on length of service as the sole reason for retention and promotion.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)