litre

/ ˈliːtə /

noun

1. one cubic decimetre
2. (formerly) the volume occupied by 1 kilogram of pure water at 4°C and 760 millimetres of mercury. This is equivalent to 1.000 028 cubic decimetres or about 1.76 pints

Word History and Origins

Origin of litre¹

C19: from French, from Medieval Latin litra, from Greek: a unit of weight

Example Sentences

They are, according to Mr Cooper, supposed to pump at 120 litres a second but had only been operating at "95 or 96".

From BBC

The apparel industry uses an estimated five trillion litres of water each year to simply dye fabric, according to the World Resources Institute, a US-based non-profit research centre.

From BBC

He is struggling to pay wages and come up with 1,200 litres of fuel per day to run the generators that power the hospital.

From BBC

She also says if fuel duty goes up then the extra cost per litre of petrol or diesel "should absolutely not be passed on to drivers".

From BBC

We were able to calculate the volume of the sewage released because it was dumped into the lake using either one or two dedicated pumps, each of which operates at 240 litres per second.

From BBC