Kilo-

Kilo- (symbol: k) is a prefix in the SI and other systems of units denoting 10³ or 1,000. For example:

• one kilogram is 1,000 grams
• one kilometre is 1,000 metres
• one kilobyte is 1,000 bytes
• one kilojoule is 1,000 joules

Officially adopted in 1795 (though in common use before that), it comes from the Greek χίλιοι ("khilioi"), meaning thousand.

Use in computing

In binary computing, kilo- does not always denote 1,000 but is sometimes equal to 1,024 (2¹⁰), most often when discussing memory and file sizes. See binary prefix for more details.