kilobyte

See also: Kilobyte

English

Etymology

Coined in the 1960s, from kilo- (“thousand”) +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

kilobyte (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing, especially networking) One thousand (10³, or 1,000) bytes.
   • 1969, Harold R. Dell, HIGH-DENSITY PERMANENT DATA STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM‎^[1], US Patent 3638185:

     The data word processor 606 handles the in-flow and out-flow of byte-oriented input/output data and interleaved signals at a rate of, for example, 500 kilobytes per second. Instruction processing rates of four to eight per microsecond are required for such a data flow.

2. (computing, informal, especially RAM) A kibibyte.
   • 1969, Hisashi Horikoshi, MEMORY CONTROL SYSTEM‎^[2], US Patent 3618041:

     It is assumed herein that each block includes 32 bytes, each sector includes 1 kilobyte, the buffer memory 116 includes 4 kilobytes, and read data is represented by one double word or 64 bits, as one word in this case consists of 32 bits.

Synonyms

• kB, KB, ㎅

Coordinate terms

• Previous: byte
• Next: megabyte

Related terms

• kibibit
• kilobit

Translations

1024 bytes

• Arabic: كِيلُوبَايْت m (kilubayt)
• Catalan: quilooctet m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: (formal) 千字節 / 千字节 (zh) (qiānzìjié), (common abbreviation, pronounced like English) KB

• Czech: kilobyte (cs) m, kilobajt (cs) m
• Esperanto: kilobajto, kilobitoko
• Finnish: kilotavu (fi)
• French: kilooctet (fr) m
• Georgian: კილობაიტი (ḳilobaiṭi)
• German: Kilobyte (de) n
• Greek: κιλομπάιτ (el) n (kilompáit), χιλιοδυφιοσυλλαβή n (chiliodyfiosyllaví)
• Hungarian: kilobyte (hu)
• Italian: kilobyte (it) m
• Japanese: キロバイト (ja) (kirobaito)
• Korean: 킬로바이트 (ko) (killobaiteu)
• Macedonian: килобајт m (kilobajt)
• Malay: kilobait
• Navajo: kiiłtsohʼííłké
• Norman: kilobouochie f
• Polish: kilobajt (pl) m
• Portuguese: kilobyte (pt) m
• Romanian: kilobyte m, kilooctet m
• Russian: килоба́йт (ru) m (kilobájt)
• Spanish: kilobyte (es) m
• Swedish: kilobyte (sv)
• Thai: กิโลไบต์ (th) (gì-loo-bái)
• Ukrainian: кілоба́йт (uk) m (kilobájt)
• Uyghur: كىلوبايت (kilobayt)

Czech

Alternative forms

• kilobajt

Etymology

From kilo- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈkɪlobajt]

Noun

kilobyte m inan

1. kilobyte

Declension

Declension of kilobyte (hard masculine inanimate foreign)

	singular	plural
nominative	kilobyte	kilobyty
genitive	kilobytu	kilobytů
dative	kilobytu	kilobytům
accusative	kilobyte	kilobyty
vocative	kilobyte	kilobyty
locative	kilobytu	kilobytech
instrumental	kilobytem	kilobyty

Further reading

• “kilobyte”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
• “byte”, in Akademický slovník cizích slov at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz [Academic dictionary of foreign words] (in Czech), 1995

Italian

Etymology

From kilo- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ki.loˈbajt/

Noun

kilobyte m (invariable)

1. (computing) kilobyte

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English kilobyte, equivalent to kilo- +‎ byte.

Noun

kilobyte m (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing) kilobyte (one thousand bytes)

Synonyms

• Abbreviations: KB, kB

Coordinate terms

• Multiples of the byte: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte

Related terms

• kilobit
• kebibyte

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English kilobyte, equivalent to kilo- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kiloˈbait/ [ki.loˈβ̞ai̯t̪]
• Rhymes: -ait
• Syllabification: ki‧lo‧byte

Noun

kilobyte m (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing) kilobyte

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “kilobyte”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025