kilometer
noun
How do you pronounce kilometer?: Usage Guide
In North American speech kilometer is most often pronounced with primary stress on the second syllable. This pronunciation is also heard frequently in British speech. Those who object to second syllable stress say that the first syllable should be stressed in accord with the stress patterns of centimeter, millimeter, etc. However, the pronunciation of kilometer does not parallel that of other metric compounds. From 1828 to 1841 Noah Webster indicated only second syllable stress, and his successor added a first syllable stress variant in the first Merriam-Webster dictionary of 1847. Thus, both pronunciations are venerable. Most scientists use second syllable stress, although first syllable stress seems to occur with a higher rate of frequency among scientists than among nonscientists.
Did you know?
A kilometer is equal to about 62/100 of a mile, and a mile is equal to about 1.61 kilometers. The U.S. has been slow to adopt metric measures, which are used almost everywhere else in the world. Though our car speedometers are often marked in both miles and kilometers, the U.S. and Great Britain are practically the only developed nations that still show miles rather than kilometers on their road signs. But even in the U.S., footraces are usually measured in meters or kilometers, like the Olympic races. Runners normally abbreviate kilometer to K: "a 5K race" (3.1 miles), "the 10K run" (6.2 miles), and so on.
Examples of kilometer in a Sentence
Jackie Wattles, CNN, 26 June 2024
The oil-rich country, which has supported Ukraine, also houses the Global Seed Vault in its Svalbard archipelago, some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) from the North Pole.
—Will Daniel, Fortune, 25 June 2024
Shortly after, at an altitude of roughly 5,000 kilometers above the southern Atlantic Ocean, the capsule separated from the orbiter and made a fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere.
—Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 25 June 2024
There is no such thing as a global ocean on Titan, and this means the fetch, the distance over which the wind can blow and grow the waves, is limited to tens of kilometers instead of over 1,500 kilometers on Earth.
—Jacek Krywko, Ars Technica, 25 June 2024
See all Example Sentences for kilometer 
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'kilometer.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near kilometer
Cite this Entry
“Kilometer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kilometer. Accessed 7 Jul. 2024.
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kilometer
noun
kil-ˈäm-
Medical Definition
kilometer
noun
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