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
Jamie Carter, Forbes, 21 Dec. 2024
Cyclone Chido, a Category 4 storm, tore through the southwestern Indian Ocean over the weekend, impacting northern Madagascar before rapidly intensifying and slamming Mayotte with winds above 220 kilometers per hour (136 miles per hour), according to France’s weather service.
—Catherine Nicholls, CNN, 19 Dec. 2024
Mangione had been held in Pennsylvania since his Dec. 9 arrest while eating breakfast at a McDonald's in Altoona, about 233 miles (37 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
—Michael R. Sisak, TIME, 19 Dec. 2024
The participants were selected as a representation of wider population dynamics across the US – a nation that disproportionately operates around 25.6% of the global air-transport industry, in terms of revenue passenger kilometers (RPK).
—New Atlas, 18 Dec. 2024
See all Example Sentences for kilometer 
Dictionary Entries Near kilometer
Cite this Entry
“Kilometer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kilometer. Accessed 31 Dec. 2024.
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kilometer
noun
kil-ˈäm-
Medical Definition
kilometer
noun
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