Methodius, St. See Sts. Cyril and Methodius
Methuselah Xmo-'thu-zo-laV Biblical patriarch who lived to the age of 969. The son of Enoch, he is mentioned in Genesis as a descendant of Seth, the son of Adam and Eve begotten after Cain. He is remembered as the world’s oldest human being. He was the father of Lamech and grand¬ father of Noah; his later descendants included Abraham, Jacob, and David.
methyl alcohol See methanol
metic Vme-tiks\ (Greek, metoikos) Any resident foreigner, including freed slaves, in ancient Greece. Although metics were free, they lacked full benefits of citizenship. For a small tax they enjoyed the protection of the law and most of a citizen’s duties, including supporting public funds, financing festivals, and serving in the military, but they could neither marry a citizen nor own land. They were found in most states, Sparta being an exception. In Athens they represented one-third of the free population.
Metis \ma-'tes\ In Canadian history, a person of mixed Indian and French or Scottish ancestry. The first Metis were the offspring of local Indian women and European fur traders in the Red River area of what is now southern Manitoba. They call themselves the Forgotten People. Their lan¬ guage, Michif, is a French and Cree trade language. Only a small per¬ centage of people can speak Michif, although attempts are being made to preserve it. For more than half a century the Metis cultivated a distinc¬ tive way of life and came to think of themselves as a nation. The Metis culture, particularly clothing, artwork, music, and dance, can be charac¬ terized as colourful and unique. They resisted the Canadian takeover of the Northwest in 1869, established a provisional government under the leadership of Louis Riel, and in 1870 negotiated a union with Canada that resulted in the establishment of the province of Manitoba. In 2003 Canada granted the Metis legal recognition as a native group, with the same broad hunting rights as full-status Indians. By the early 21st century the esti¬ mated number of Metis in western Canada was more than 550,000.
metre Basic unit of length in the metric system and the International Sys¬ tem of Units. In 1983 the General Conference on Weights and Measures decided that the accepted value for the speed of light would be exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, so the metre is now defined as the dis¬ tance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second. One metre is equal to about 39.37 in. in the U.S. Customary System.
metre In poetry, the rhythmic pattern of a poetic line. Various principles have been devised to organize poetic lines into rhythmic units. Quanti¬ tative verse, the metre of Classical Greek and Latin poetry, measures the length of time required to pronounce syllables, regardless of their stress; combinations of long and short syllables form the basic rhythmic units. Syllabic verse is most common in languages that are not strongly accented, such as French or Japanese; it is based on a fixed number of syllables within a line. Accentual verse occurs in strongly stressed lan¬ guages, such as the Germanic; only stressed syllables within a line are counted. Accentual-syllabic verse is the usual form in English poetry; it
combines syllable counting and stress counting. The most common English metre, iambic pentameter, is a line of 10 syllables, or 5 iambic feet; each foot contains an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syl¬ lable. Free verse does not follow regular metrical patterns. See also prosody.
metre See rhythm and metre
metric space In mathematics, a set of objects equipped with a concept of distance. The objects can be thought of as points in space, with the distance between points given by a distance formula, such that: (1) the dis¬ tance from point A to point B is zero if and only if A and B are identical, (2) the distance from A to B is the same as from B to A, and (3) the dis¬ tance from A to B plus that from B to C is greater than or equal to the distance from A to C (the triangle inequality). Two- and three-dimensional Euclidean spaces are metric spaces, as are inner product spaces, vector spaces, and certain topological spaces (see topology).
metric system International decimal system of weights and measures, based on the metre (m) for length and the kilogram (kg) for mass, origi¬ nally adopted in France in 1795. All other metric units were derived from the metre, including the gram (g) for weight (1 cc of water at its maxi¬ mum density) and the litre (1, or L) for capacity (0.001 cu m). In the 20th century, the metric system became the basis for the International System of Units, which is now used officially almost worldwide.
metrical foot See metrical foot
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. See MGM
metrology \me-'tra-l3-je\ Science of measurement. Measuring a quan¬ tity means establishing its ratio to another fixed quantity of the same kind, known as the unit of that kind of quantity. A unit is an abstract idea, defined either by reference to a randomly chosen material standard or to a natural phenomenon. For example, the metre, the standard of length in the metric system, was formerly defined (1889-1960) by the separation of two lines on a particular metal bar, but it is now defined as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 second. See also Interna¬ tional System of Units.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Most comprehensive collection of art in the U.S. and one of the foremost in the world. It was incorporated in New York City in 1870, and the present building in Central Park on Fifth Avenue was opened in 1880. The Metropolitan was built with the private fortunes of businessmen; today it is owned by the city but sup¬ ported mainly by private endowment. Its outstanding Egyptian, Mesopot¬ amian, East Asian, Middle Eastern, Greek and Roman, European, pre- Columbian, and U.S. collections include—in addition to paintings, sculpture, and graphic arts—architecture, glass, ceramics, textiles, metal¬ work, furniture, arms and armour, and musical instruments. It also incor¬ porates a Costume Institute and the Thomas J. Watson Library, one of the world’s greatest art and archaeology reference collections. Much of the medieval collection is housed at The Cloisters in Manhattan’s Fort Tryon Park; its building (1938) incorporates parts of medieval monasteries and churches.
Metropolitan Opera Leading U.S. opera company, based in New York City. Founded by a group of millionaires who had failed to get boxes at the Academy of Music, it opened in 1883. The Met soon outlived its frivolous origin, becoming the American equivalent of La Scala in Milan and second to no opera house in the world in the quality of the singers it attracted. Originally sited at Broadway and 39th Street, it moved into its new home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1966.
Metsys Vmet-sls\, Quentin (b. c. 1465/66, Louvain, Brabant—d. 1530, Antwerp) Flemish artist. According to tradition, Metsys (whose name was also spelled Massys and Matsys) was trained as a blacksmith but studied painting after falling in love with an artist’s daughter. He was admitted to the Antwerp artists’ guild in 1491. His most celebrated paint¬ ings are two large triptych altarpieces. The Holy Kinship (1507-09) and The Entombment of Christ (1508-11), both of which exhibit strong reli¬ gious feelings and precision of detail. He painted many notable portraits, including one of Desiderius Erasmus. He was the first important painter of the Antwerp school, and the first Flemish artist to effect a genuine syn¬ thesis of the northern European and Italian Renaissance traditions.