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
Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 3 June 2024
The Corral Fire began burning Saturday near the city of Tracy, 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of San Francisco, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the city of Livermore, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
—NPR, 2 June 2024
Typically, aurora borealis form about 80 to 500 kilometers — about 50 to 311 miles — above the Earth’s surface, NOAA said on its website.
—Hanh Truong, Sacramento Bee, 31 May 2024
There’s lots of action and violence happening on the front line, which constantly contaminates, cumulatively, the areas that are the front line and the gray zone, as well as areas up to 50 kilometers back from both sides.
—IEEE Spectrum, 29 May 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 6 Jun. 2024.
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kilometer
noun
kil-ˈäm-
Medical Definition
kilometer
noun
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