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
Benjamin Roulston, Discover Magazine, 7 Nov. 2024
Jorge Castellanos/Sopa Images/Sipa USA/Reuters The budget is helping the city transition to electric vehicles, create net-zero construction sites, expand cycling lanes by 100 kilometers (62 miles), and install carbon-capture technology.
—Erika Page, The Christian Science Monitor, 4 Nov. 2024
Unfortunately, that’s 220 miles or 354 kilometers away.
—John Koetsier, Forbes, 2 Nov. 2024
Earlier Thursday, the typhoon’s eye blew about 110 kilometers (68 miles) east of the northernmost Philippine province of Batanes, a cluster of islands and islets of about 19,000 people.
—Associated Press, TIME, 31 Oct. 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 28 Nov. 2024.
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kilometer
noun
kil-ˈäm-
Medical Definition
kilometer
noun
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