COMMON MEASURE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does common measure mean? 

• COMMON MEASURE (noun)
  The noun COMMON MEASURE has 3 senses:

1. a time signature indicating four beats to the bar

2. an integer that divides two (or more) other integers evenly

3. the usual (iambic) meter of a ballad

  Familiarity information: COMMON MEASURE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COMMON MEASURE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A time signature indicating four beats to the bar

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

common measure; common time; four-four time; quadruple time

Hypernyms ("common measure" is a kind of...):

musical time ((music) the beat of musical rhythm)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An integer that divides two (or more) other integers evenly

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Synonyms:

common divisor; common factor; common measure

Hypernyms ("common measure" is a kind of...):

divisor; factor (one of two or more integers that can be exactly divided into another integer)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "common measure"):

greatest common divisor; greatest common factor; highest common factor (the largest integer that divides without remainder into a set of integers)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The usual (iambic) meter of a ballad

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

common measure; common meter

Hypernyms ("common measure" is a kind of...):

beat; cadence; measure; meter; metre ((prosody) the accent in a metrical foot of verse)

 Context examples 

Six hundred beds of the common measure were brought in carriages, and worked up in my house; a hundred and fifty of their beds, sewn together, made up the breadth and length; and these were four double: which, however, kept me but very indifferently from the hardness of the floor, that was of smooth stone.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)