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How to spell perimeter

hear itpe·rim·e·ter/pə'rɪmɪtər/nounHidden vowels

What it means: The outer edge or boundary of an area.

In a sentence: The fence goes around the perimeter of the playground.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as perimiter or peremeter.

Same family: perimeter(s), peripheral, parameter, circumference, boundary. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Perimeter comes from Greek roots: 'peri' meaning 'around' and 'metron' meaning 'measure.' It literally means 'a measure around,' which is exactly what you do when you find the distance around a shape.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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