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• k
  k

  a vector on the z-axis, having length 1 unit.
• K
  K

  abbreviation

  carrying capacity.
• k.
  k.

  abbreviation

  capacity.
• K.
  K.

  abbreviation

  kip; kips.

k

¹ American  

Symbol.

1. Mathematics. a vector on the z-axis, having length 1 unit.

2. Boltzmann constant.

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K ² American  

abbreviation

Ecology.

1. carrying capacity.

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K ³ American  

[kay] / keɪ /

Or k

noun

• K's,
  plural
• Ks,
  plural
• k's,
  plural
• ks
  plural

1. the eleventh letter of the English alphabet, a consonant.

2. any sound represented by the letter K or k, as in bilk, kit, or sick.

3. something having the shape of a K .

4. a written or printed representation of the letter K or k.

5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter K or k.

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K ⁴ American  

abbreviation

1. the number 1000.

   The salary offered is $20K.

2. kilometer, especially in a footrace or wheelchair race on a road or track.

   She’s training to run her first 10K this summer.

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K ⁵ American  

abbreviation

1. Chess. king.

2. Physics. Kelvin.

3. Music. Köchel listing.

4. kindergarten.

   a K–12 boarding school.

5. Real Estate. kitchen.

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K ⁶ American  

Symbol.

1. the eleventh in order or in a series.

2. Computers.

   1. the number 1024 or 2 10 .

      A binary 32K memory has 32,768 positions.

   2. kilobyte.

3. Baseball. strikeout; strikeouts.

4. Physics. kaon.

5. Biochemistry. lysine.

6. Chemistry. potassium.

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k. ⁷ American  

abbreviation

1. Electricity. capacity.

2. karat.

3. kilogram; kilograms.

4. Chess. king.

5. knight.

6. knot.

7. kopeck.

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K. ⁸ American  

abbreviation

1. kip; kips.

2. Knight.

3. kwacha.

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K ¹ British  

symbol

1. kelvin(s)

2. chess king

3. chem potassium

4. physics kaon

5. currency

   1. kina

   2. kip

   3. kopeck

   4. kwacha

   5. kyat

6. one thousand

7. computing

   1. a unit of 1024 words, bits, or bytes

   2. (not in technical usage) 1000

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abbreviation

1. Cambodia (international car registration)

k ² British  

/ keɪ /

noun

1. the 11th letter and 8th consonant of the modern English alphabet

2. a speech sound represented by this letter, usually a voiceless velar stop, as in kitten

3. See five Ks

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k ³ British  

symbol

1. kilo(s)

2. maths the unit vector along the z-axis

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K ⁴ British  

abbreviation

1. Köchel: indicating the serial number in the catalogue (1862) of the works of Mozart made by Ludwig von Köchel (1800–77)

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• K's
  plural
• Ks
  plural
• k's
  plural
• ks
  plural

Etymology

Origin of K⁴

Abbreviation of kilo- K ² for def. 1; abbreviation of kilometer ( def. ) K ² for def. 2

Origin of K⁶

K ⁴ def. 6 from German Kalium

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

k K k. K. K's Ks k's ks

But some economists see evidence of a so-called k-shaped economy, where the two legs of the k represent different income groups, with a relatively small slice of high earners boosting spending growth.

From Barron's ● Apr. 3, 2026

The track she was looking at, later labelled k, was evidence of an unknown particle, now known as the kaon or K meson.

From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2024

For example, in the English language, the letter q is usually followed by the letter u and never by the letter k.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

If the objects are distributed evenly among the drawers, then, on average, n ⁄ k objects end up in the same drawer.

From Scientific American ● Mar. 20, 2023

One of his cousins, Samuel Phillips Lee, was a rear admiral in the Union navy. k Lee’s father, General Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, was a hero of the American Revolution.

From "Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever" by Bill O'Reilly

Police arrived to make their arrest late that night, leading Serhii K away from the glamping site and his family in handcuffs.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

Next week, following his extradition to Germany and months in isolation in a high security prison, Serhii K will go on trial in Hamburg.

From BBC ● Oct. 10, 2026

The planned IPO is also a defensive measure against hostile buyout attempts following a long-running $47 billion takeover campaign by Circle K owner Alimentation Couche-Tard.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

The current variant, H3N2 subclade K, appears similar to last year’s strain and is included in this year’s vaccine, reducing concern about a major mismatch between the vaccine and the flu strain, Chin-Hong said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

Thirty-two more minutes until our group broke up and Rukia and the K moved back to their own desks.

From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia

It was truly a scene at that time, often set to music by Robert John Burck, a. k. a. the Naked Cowboy, a fervent supporter of Mr. Trump.

From New York Times ● Aug. 15, 2017

But just as bell hooks, the feminist writer, and k. d. lang, the singer-songwriter, often see their names appear with unwanted capital letters, lowercase compositions are often capitalized on their way to publication.

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2017

The Japanese took to the game so wholeheartedly that today their system is actually overbuilt; generating stations with a capacity of some 300,000 k. w. lie idle.

From Time Magazine Archive

He was inclined to be facetious, and wanted to know if I had come across any more k. v's.

From The Window at the White Cat by Mary Roberts Rinehart

The following table represents the nature of such changes approximately for these three groups of languages:— Greek, Sanscrit, Latin, Celtic p. b. f. t. d. th. k. g. ch.

From Early Britain Anglo-Saxon Britain by Grant Allen

"Christa Pike was discharged from a local hospital and is now at Deborah K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center where she has been housed for more than 30 years," her lawyers said in a statement Saturday.

From Barron's ● Oct. 10, 2026

Instead, his campaign states, only the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, co-founded by billionaire Gary K. Michelson, would qualify under the proposed criteria.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026

"Physicists call this trait universality -- the messy, microscopic details wash out and only a few essential features survive," explains Jason Alicea, William K. Davis Professor of Theoretical Physics.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026

Between the two units, that meant a total drop to 26,000 alarms from 60,000, says study co-author Dr. Jeffrey K. Yang, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics-cardiology at Stanford Medicine Children’s Health.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

In the tiny classrooms, students gathered around conference tables and critiqued the concept of America as a shining city on a hill, or compared the writings of Charles Darwin and Ursula K. Le Guin.

From "The 57 Bus" by Dashka Slater

New members to Circle K’s loyalty program get 25 cents off a gallon for their first five fuel-ups.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 14, 2026

Officers described K's bedroom as looking like a "prison cell", with other bedrooms also untidy and dirty.

From BBC ● Jan. 21, 2026

With Albania already assured of second place, Serbia beat Latvia 2-1 in a dead-rubber in Group K's other match.

From Barron's ● Nov. 16, 2025

Stanford bound Mike Erspamer with the complete game shutout & 9 K’s; Kai Cesare with a 2 run double.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2025

Of course, I will be all right, he told himself, pretending to be brave, but I will be careful to stay away from Miss K’s toothpaste.

From "Ralph S. Mouse" by Beverly Cleary

Only four pitchers in the majors this year recorded more Ks with a single pitch.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 20, 2024

Raley is also 2 for 11 with five Ks of his own.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 2, 2024

The student didn't even care to investigate what the three Ks meant in Murillo's book title.

From Salon ● Sep. 23, 2023

With the nine strikeouts, he finished the month of August with 53 Ks, the second-most in Royals history behind Dennis Leonard’s 55 in June 1977.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 30, 2023

He always curled the tip of his Ks, and his Zs looked like chubby 3s.

From "I Will Always Write Back" by Caitlin Alifirenka and Martin Ganda

Hard consonants - k's, d's, hard c's and hard g's - gave me hell.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 21, 2010

It was because she has trouble saying words sometimes, especially beginnings, like b’s and t’s and k’s.

From Absolutely Almost by Lisa Graff

T l k's? true lover's knots! none of my business, of course, but the professor appears to be interested in the fair acrobat—acrobatess—acrobatia—what you will!

From Fernley House by Etheldred B. (Etheldred Breeze) Barry

His real name was not known in Muirtown—not because he had not given it, but because it could not be pronounced, being largely composed of x's and k's, with an irritating parsimony of vowels.

From Young Barbarians by Ian Maclaren

The k's and g's liable to labialization in Eu. languages appear to be occasionally labialized in Dakotan languages.

From The Dakotan Languages, and Their Relations to Other Languages by A. W. (Andrew Woods) Williamson

Bills 31st in NFL with 16 sac ks, including 10 in 23-0 win over Redskins.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 1, 2011

With the construction of big military bases at Dutch Harbor, Kodiak, Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska became more than a massive map sprinkled with names full of harsh ks and ts.

From Time Magazine Archive

Fyodorov and his colleagues have performed more than 2,000 "radial ks" with, they claim, most of the cases improving to at least 20/25 vision.

From Time Magazine Archive

Exceptions.—X final, being equivalent to ks, is never doubled; and when the derivative does not retain the accent of the root, the final consonant is not always doubled: as, prefer' + ence = pref'erence.

From New Word-Analysis by William Swinton

Also, he starts in Ionic, but very soon, for no apparent reason, abandons it for every-day Greek, still keeping the Ionic es and ks and ous, but otherwise writing like ordinary people—rather too ordinary, indeed.

From Works of Lucian of Samosata — Volume 02 by F. G. (Francis George) Fowler