The hundredth part of a meter; a measure of length equal to rather more than thirty-nine hundredths (0.3937) of an inch. See Meter.

a metric unit of length equal to one hundredth of a meter

A centimetre (American spelling centimeter, symbol cm), sometimes called "chim", is a unit of length that is equal to one hundredth of a metre, the current SI base unit of length. A centimetre is part of a metric system. It is the base unit in the centimetre-gram-second system of units.