Other forms: metrics
A metric is a number chosen to measure how well something works. Key metrics, a vanity metric, track the metric.
Choosing one changes behaviour, which is the standing danger — a metric that becomes a target stops being a good measure, and vanity metrics look impressive while measuring nothing that matters. As an adjective, metric means of the system based on the metre. Note metrics; and that the word comes from the Greek for measure.
1nounmetricA number chosen to measure how well something works.
“Customer satisfaction is the main metric we use to judge the new service.”
2adjectivemeasuringOf the measuring system based on the metre.
“Britain switched to metric weights in shops, but its road signs still show miles.”
metric is a measure.
French metrique comes from Latin metrum, a measure, from Greek metron. Metre, diameter and geometry come from the same measure.
New Latin
metricus — pertaining to the system based on the meter
French
métrique
English, today
metric
Built from
From French métrique (1864), from New Latin metricus (“pertaining to the system based on the meter”), from metrum (“a meter”); see meter. by surface analysis, metre + -ic.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA