Number & MeasureGreek → English
Kilometer
/kɪˈlɑːmɪtər/noun
A thousand metres, the standard unit for road distance almost everywhere.
The Greek roots
χίλιοι
chílioi
thousand
μέτρον
métron
measure
Literally: “thousand measures”
The story of the word
The metric system split its vocabulary along a language line in 1795: Greek numerals for the multiples, Latin for the fractions. That is why kilo-, hecto- and deca- go up while deci-, centi- and milli- go down, and why a runner covering a kilometre is doing Greek arithmetic and shaving off millimetres in Latin. Strict transliteration of χίλιοι would have given chiliometre; the French spelling won.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French coinage → English
- First recorded
- early 19th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
kilogramkilowattgeometrymetronome
In a sentence
She runs ten kilometers before work, in any weather.
The last kilometer of the climb is the one that breaks people.