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Definition of odometer
: an instrument for measuring the distance traveled (as by a vehicle)
From the M-W Editors
Recent Examples of odometer from the Web
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Online copy chief Rusty Blackwell was in the middle of a 1500-mile round trip to Alabama when the first low-fluid warning appeared with about 10,000 miles on the odometer.
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Some banks won’t offer 60-month loans on older cars or cars with lots of miles on the odometer.
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And when all the interest and fees of a subprime loan are added up, even a used car with mechanical defects and many miles on the odometer can end up costing more than a new car.
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White’s DeLorean, which only has 15,000 miles on the odometer, is a showstopper.
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For example, if someone sells a car that has 200,000 miles on it but has tampered with the odometer to show only 20,000 miles, that is cheating the buyer out of thousands of dollars.
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That would involve putting wireless meters on people’s odometers, a modest bit of technology not that different from electric meters in the home but likely to raise an outcry about privacy from those who fear the government is tracking them.
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Cars with more than 600,000 kilometers, or about 370,000 miles, on the odometer may not be used.
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The car was eventually rendered immobile, unable to shift into neutral, with less than 200 miles on the odometer.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'odometer'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
Odometer includes the root from the Greek word hodos, meaning "road" or "trip". An odometer shares space on your dashboard with a speedometer, a tachometer, and maybe a "tripmeter". The odometer is what crooked car salesmen tamper with when they want to reduce the mileage a car registers as having traveled. One of life's little pleasures is watching the odometer as all the numbers change at the same time.
Origin and Etymology of odometer
French odomètre, from Greek hodometron, from hodos way, road + metron measure — more at measure
ODOMETER Defined for English Language Learners
odometer
playDefinition of odometer for English Language Learners
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: a device in a car, truck, etc., that measures the distance that the vehicle has traveled
ODOMETER Defined for Kids
odometer
playDefinition of odometer for Students
: an instrument for measuring the distance traveled (as by a vehicle)
Learn More about odometer
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See words that rhyme with odometer Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about odometer
Seen and Heard
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