pedometer

English

Etymology

According to the American Heritage Dictionary, from French pédomètre, from pedi-, combining form for Latin pēs (“foot”), plus -ometer, from Greek. In French now the word is podomètre, and similar in other Romance languages and in Greek (ποδόμετρο (podómetro)). By surface analysis, pedo- (“foot”) +‎ -meter = pedo- +‎ -ometer.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɪˈdɑmətɚ/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɪˈdɒmətə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

pedometer (plural pedometers)

1. A device, often electronic, that measures the number of steps taken, and thus estimates the distance walked.

   He thought that buying a pedometer would spur him on to exercise.

   • 2019 June 27, Jack Schofield, “What’s the best cheap tablet or e-reader for PDF files?”, in The Guardian‎^[1], archived from the original on 9 December 2022:

     A smartphone is not the best camera, notebook, word processor, audio recorder, radio, MP3 player, map reader, pedometer and so on, but it is good enough replace numerous separate devices for most people most of the time.

Related terms

English terms derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *ped- (0 c, 73 e)

Translations

device

• Azerbaijani: addımölçən, pedometr
• Bulgarian: крачкомер m (kračkomer)
• Catalan: podòmetre m, pedòmetre m, comptapasses m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 計步器 / 计步器 (zh) (jìbùqì)

• Czech: krokoměr (cs) m, pedometr m
• Dutch: stappenteller (nl) m
• Finnish: askelmittari (fi)
• French: podomètre (fr) m
• Galician: podómetro (gl) m, contapasos m
• German: Schrittzähler (de) m
• Greek: βηματόμετρο n (vimatómetro)
• Icelandic: skrefamælir m, skrefmælir m, skrefateljari m
• Italian: pedometro m, contapassi m, passimetro m, podometro (it) m
• Japanese: 歩数計 (ja) (ほすうけい, hosūkei), 万歩計 (ja) (まんぽけい, manpokei), 計歩器 (けいほき, keihoki), ペドメーター (pedomētā)
• Korean: 보수계(步數計) (bosugye), 보측계(步測計) (bocheukgye), 보도계(步度計) (bodogye), 만보계(萬步計) (ko) (manbogye), 기보기(記步器) (gibogi), 측보기(測步器) (cheukbogi), 계보기(計步器) (gyebogi), 만보기(萬步機) (ko) (manbogi), 페도미터 (pedomiteo)
• Malagasy: pedômetra
• Malay: pedometer
• Polish: krokomierz (pl) m
• Portuguese: podómetro, pedómetro m (Portugal); podômetro (pt) m, pedômetro m (Brazil)
• Russian: шагоме́р (ru) m (šagomér), педо́метр (ru) m (pedómetr)
• Spanish: podómetro m, odómetro (es) m, cuentapasos m
• Swedish: stegräknare (sv) c pl

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “pedometer”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Anagrams

• pedometre