In the music theory and performance of Javanese gamelan music, gatra is an important concept for measuring time and governing interactions within an ensemble. Despite its importance, definitions of the term vary over whether it is a metrical unit inhabited by melody or a unit of melody with specific metric characteristics. Due to metric emphases on the second and fourth beats, Western scholars describe gatra as essentially the reverse of a Western 4/4 measure (Perlman 2004, Pickvance 2005). This treatment of gatra as a metric unit stands in opposition to how Javanese scholars describe it as both melodic and metric (Sumarsam 1995/2023, Supanggah 2004). This paper argues that the analogy between gatra and Western measures caused the definition of the term to shift, resulting in the current divide. To demonstrate this, I trace the term’s usage from its origins in the Indonesian nationalist movement through its shift in twentieth-century scholarship. Gatra, originally used both melodically and metrically, gained an analogy with measures which obscured its melodic definition in favor of an easily understandable description for Western audiences. Scholars read Sumarsam’s (1995) critique of using gatra to describe the act of composition as a critique of its melodic definition, which contributed to the unpopularity of this usage despite Sumarsam’s own support of it. By examining this history, this paper reveals how cross-cultural analogies have the potential to influence the music theory of non-Western traditions by causing concepts to shift in definition to better fit Western frameworks.