Why does american english change “metre” to “meter” but not “wire” to “wier” or “lyre” to “lyer”?

Question

Why does american english change “metre” to “meter” but not “wire” to “wier” or “lyre” to “lyer”?

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Answer 1

Because in the word “meter/metre”, the ending ‘r’ sound follows a consonant, but in “wire” and “lyre”, it follows a vowel. The presence of a consonant there requires an additional syllable, which American English represents by putting the ‘e’ before the ‘r’.

Another contributing factor is the rule for a silent ‘e’ in American English, which is that vowel-consonant-e (such as ire or yre) at the end of a word makes the ‘e’ silent. The pattern consonant-consonant-e (such as tre) actually means that the ‘e’ should not be silent (again, in American English–obviously, it is silent in British English).