Kilometre

How to spell kilometre

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce kilometre

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does kilometre mean?

1. nounA metric unit of length equal to one thousand metres.

Kilometre in a sentence

• The nearest petrol station is about one kilometre from the motorway exit.

• She added another kilometre to her morning run without much effort.

Where does kilometre come from?

Language of origin: French

This is a compound coined in French as kilometre during the metric reforms of the 1790s, joining the Greek khilioi, meaning 'thousand', to metron, meaning 'a measure'. The metre itself was defined as a base unit of length, so a kilometre is literally a thousand of them. English borrowed the French word in the early 1800s and kept the French -re ending, which is why British and Canadian writers spell it kilometre while American writers reshaped it to kilometer. The kilo- element is the same one that gives us kilogram and kilowatt, and recognising it as a clean 'thousand' prefix helps fix the spelling. The persistent trap is the final -re rather than -er, a direct inheritance from the French form that also troubles metre, litre, and centre.

How the word is built

• kilo- (thousand, from Greek khilioi)
• metre (measure, from Greek metron)

British and American spelling

Kilometre is the British spelling. American English spells it kilometer.